Posted on 09/13/2003 12:01:09 PM PDT by sourcery
NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Using phone numbers, remote controls and computer keyboards will likely seem quaint within a decade as new capability to turn human speech into accurate, efficient computer code radically changes the ways we live and work.
That's the outlook of Lawrence R. Rabiner, associate director of the Center for Advanced Information Processing (CAIP) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in an overview of speech processing, "The Power of Speech," in the journal Science, available Friday (Sept. 12).
"We are rapidly approaching the point where entering data to devices by voice - regardless of language or accent - will be as accurate and efficient as entering it by keypad or mouse. When this happens, another wall between humans and machines will fall. The idea of 'going to work' to get things done will change to 'getting things done' no matter where you are," said Rabiner, a Rutgers electrical and computer engineering professor, former vice president of research at AT&T Labs and co-author of four books in the fields of digital signal processing and speech processing.
Life at home will change, too, as operating the family entertainment center becomes a matter of pointing at it and saying "find me a good classical music station," Rabiner said.
He explained that new abilities to compress and transport massive amounts of computer code without using excessive network capacity will help usher in this new age of voice control. At the same time, the shrinking size of equipment will drive the move away from hand-operated controls. "There's no room for a keypad when the device you're controlling is as small as a single key. Voice control has an advantage here because it requires virtually no physical space and we always carry our voices with us," he said. For security, new speech verification technologies will be able to analyze voices and restrict use of devices to intended users only.
Rabiner said he expects to see the following voice-control scenarios evolving over the next five to 10 years:
* Telephone calls will be made by name, not number.
* Intelligent voice-controlled communications agents, essentially nonintrusive network-based robots, will place our phone calls, track down the people we want to reach and let us now whether these people want to talk to us.
* Voice-controlled agents will help us find deals on merchandise, remind us about appointments and birthdays, and control our appliances from any location.
* Virtually all devices in the home and office will be network accessible and voice controllable.
* The distinction between work life and home life will blur as we can do whatever we want from wherever we are at any time. Work will become something we do, not someplace we go.
Can't wait to have dental work by voice command....
When the human soul becomes part machine. Just push that computer chip propaganda as a "good thing", and the dirty deed is done. You no longer control your own life. It will be done for you.
If so, what does, "Slap you" do?
I can't wait.
"Lawn, mow!"
Not at the library........pal!
The beast of the Apocalypse is already set up in Brussels, Belgium: It is a gigantic computer that makes its own programs. "By using three entries of six digits each, each citizen of the whole world will be given a distinct credit card number." Three entries of six digits each: 666.
In New Jersey?
No member could buy or sell without first being given such a numbered imprint.
The directors of the Common Market are now convinced that world order demands, on the allegiance of peace and politics, a new world system of trade and numbering.
A single individual would have, within reach, the number of any hinabitan instrument of peace or a weapon of dictatorship.
When one of the leading heads of the Common Market was asked what would happen if someone objected to the system and refused to cooperate, he answered rather bluntly: "We would be obliged to have recourse to force to bring him to conform to the new requirements."
Henry Spaak, who was the founder of the European Common Market, and General Secretary of NATO, said, in one of his speeches:
"We don't want another committee, we already have enough of them. What we want is a man of such stature that he be capable to gain the allegiance of peace and politics to pull us out of the economic chaos into which we are sinking. Send us this man, and, be he god or demon, we will welcome him."
Understanding human speech can be difficult for humans, but how will a machine handle accents, or illerates?
I don't know for a fact, but I suspect a lot of human communication is as much in the context of what is said, and the tone of voice. Will the humans have to adopt a neutral voice to speak to a computer?
Perhaps in your own home, or office, a machine that can respond to a voice, "lights on" or "lights off", but how will the machine know if the command shows up in a normal conversation?
Then there is the noise factor. Occassionally someone will begin listening to their voice mail over a speakerphone. It is annoying, having everyone in the office giving their computer vocal commands would also be annoying.
Last, when you are surfing using a mouse, unless someone is looking at your screen they do not know what your are doing (unless you work for a company with spy software, in which case, sorry). But what if you had to give the command verbally - "Computer, FreeRepublic".
Computers did not come with a mouse when they first began to appear on desktops. Once one was invented, everyone saw the benefit of it, and it became standard. I do not see the same thing happening to voice commands.
But I could be wrong.
Voice recognition software has been around for quite a while. It asks you to read a couple of writings, and your accent, or individual voice, will be programmed into it's memory.
To close down our computers, we just say the command "go to sleep."
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