Re: Apple iPads for Microsoft developer

[I D Shukhov]

And if there's an input style one step above gestures, it might be voice - finally - because the Siri feature on the iPhones is gaining huge popularity.  I admit that my hatred for talking to machines has prevented me from using Siri yet.  I do mean to play with it some time to get used to it and see how usable it is.  I keep hearing how useful (and funny) it is, so I'm sure I'll just have to get over my hatred for talking at machines eventually.

I agree with you and Walter.  Voice is where it's at.  In the case of hospital checklists I mentioned above, I think it would be awkward to check off steps in a procedure while cradling an iPad in one arm while performing the procedure.  A better idea is to have a smartphone app that asks you about the steps which you respond to verbally.  Heck, in that case it only needs to understand "yes", "no", and maybe something like:  "please repeat steps 4-8".

[The Gorn]

The voice search feature on Android phones appears to ship your voice to Google's server for voice recognition. It does not seem to be done on the phone itself and it does not seem to need any training. The accuracy is REALLY good, unless there is a lot of ambient noise, or for unfamiliar words (ethnic names, etc.)

[John Masterson]

Siri, however, is nothing like typical Google voice-recognition for search.

Siri starts with voice recognition, but then applies machine learning from your previous requests (and from your contacts listing) to "understand" with context what you are probably wanting to find out.

So you can ask, "Do I need to buy a snow shovel before tonight"?

Siri is a product of SRI (Science Research International), which has invested more than 20 years and hundreds of millions (from military funding and DARPA) to understanding voice communication semantically.

I think I mentioned it before, now that I think of it; and so you know what I am talking about.

It's going to be interesting if SRI is able to learn from your search and the billions of other search requests it gets. It will learn when it gives you the wrong answer, and you note tell it so.

[The Gorn]

Ok. Noted.

If the principles behind the voice engine were developed by DARPA, then shouldn't the core technology be in the public domain?

[John Masterson]

Gorn,

Good point. It should be in the public domain...but perhaps the core algorithms are almost useless unless you have the rest of the "stuff" they applied to it on their own dime, or Apple's dime.

I read on Quora that the way for the rest of us to make money with Siri is to expose a webservice to particular, public data that we might have that Siri could use to answer questions posed to it.

[Walter Mitty]

Keyboardless, touch screen driven entry and voice entry are fine for searching and for playing games and for using most applications.

They are all absolutely terrible entry modes for creating content. For writing, or for drawing.

Given that the distinction between fighting a war and playing a video game is fading,  meybe there will be more and more fields where this style of entry is all that's needed.

"Writing" reminds me of a problem with all the spelling errors on the stuff that goes on the projector in our church.  I offered the opinion that all the young ones under 30 are computer literate, some wag says to me,  "yeah, but  try to find one that can spell!"