Speech Recognition, Voice Verification -- Free 120
ten thirty writes: "TECHNOCRAT.NET recently featured a great
article regarding the dawning (well, it's only a few of years old anyway) of speech recognition software within the open source community. In particular, the
Sphinx
project of Carnegie Mellon University is discussed, as well as some other systems such as Festival and a public domain project at the University of Missouri. The notion here is that
eventually the GUI, which has come so far over the past two decades, will eventually be supplanted, at least for some applications, by the VUI. The question is, will the open-source community allow the integration of this technology into our society be spearheaded by closed-source vendors?"
Runtime and SDK are still free (Score:1)
Re:Can we use this kind of technology to teach? (Score:1)
Where has the story been? (Score:2)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:4)
It'd also be nice in a wearable computer system, though I'm sure someone already has a patent on using voice to control a wearable computer.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Save a life. Eat more cheese.
Save a life. Eat more cheese
What speech packages run on Linux ($$$ or free)? (Score:2)
Patent issues and Microsoft (Score:3)
It is further no secret that Microsoft has been hiring machine learning and speech recognition experts from anywhere they can find them, and paying them pretty well.
You can bet that the best voice recognition sequences will be patented and protected in the US.
file management: CLI vs. GUI (Score:1)
For instance, it is easier to drag select several folders then drop them into the trash, than it is to explicitly name those directories in a CLI.
Not always. Not even most of the time, i would say. In most cases, I believe CLI is far more capable and easy to use. Let's imagine I have a directory filled with 100 sub-directories. I want to delete 50 specific sub-directories. In a GUI I have to Shift-click each one, or "lasso" most of them and Shift-click the rest. What a pain. In CLI, i just cook up a regex or two that defines my 50 selected directories, and viola, it is done.
Granted, for the newbie, coming up with that (those) regex(s) is going to take some time. maybe more time than pointing-and-clicking 50 times. But if you make that initial investment of learning regex, you will never have to waste time clicking on every little thing you want to manipulate.
It seems to me that sometimes GUI's lure the newbie away from the initial investment of learning the better way of doing things, and leaves them stranded in the "I hate it when I have to click on 50 different things", world, from which they have no idea there is even an exit.
Re:Did anyone else notice ... (Score:4)
Computer: Unable to toast lorry
User: No, Post, P
Computer: Command 'host tea'. Tea is scheduled for 16:00
User: Post the damn story
Computer: Command 'roast ham'. Oven is preheating. Would you like to serve the Ham with tea?
User: Cancel, I do not want ham, I do not want spam, I do not like it in a car, I do not like it at the bar. Just post the story.
...
Re:Telephony. (Score:1)
I'm not so sure that this is a good thing. Even with increased quality of voice recognition software, we still don't seem to be progressing very quickly with AI. Of course companies are still going to use this [yeah I know many already do], but I personally don't like talking to computers over the phone. For something simple like "say 1 for Tech support, say 2 for customer service " etc it's not so bad, but even that can be annoying. A friend of mine called Sears the other day. They are set up to have the caller say the name of the department they'd like to be transferred to. Unfortunately saying "Operater" does NOT get you to a human [no matter how loud you scream it :) ].
I would love to have Voice Recognition on my computer. At least in that situation I can see how the computer is reacting to what I'm saying, and if it isn't working right, I can intervene with the normal keyboard/mouse controls. But until the 'intelligence' of the systems is improved, I'd rather talk to a human when ordering something over the phone. I'd hate to accidentally get 200qty of widget X @ $20/ea when I only wanted 2qty of Widget XY @ $20ea :)
Ender
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
If you use an inverse feedback circuit on the mic, the only sound the VUI will hear is anything different than what is playing on the radio.
Too late to lead -- it's here already (Score:1)
"...will the open-source community allow the integration of this technology into our society be spearheaded by closed-source vendors?"
This is a moot point. Speech-recognition has been in mainstream use in society for over a decade already. You just don't realize it when it's happening because the computer isn't in front of you.
The closed-source proprietary companies have already spearheaded the integration of speech recognition. As usual, it is the role of free software to play catch-up as the technology trickles down to the level where hobbyists and academics can implement the algorithms and run them on commodity hardware.
What about speech intention recognition? (Score:1)
Advances in technology (Score:1)
Or take KDE. There is not a single Linux system in the world that does not use it. It was invented, and now text consoles are all gone. A few people squabble wanting GNOME to be the one GUI for Linux. It just will not happen now that KDE is. I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple years, laws are past to make text consoles and GNOME illegal or something as well. Some scientists with bowties will go on Larry King and say how some oddball amoeba lives off the pixels of your monitor and to not use graphics will kill them. You think these ilcomputerate Americans will second guess a guy with a bowtie??
So, speech recognition is coming. Do not fight it. Or I will have you arrested. Oh, and crazy liberals piss me off.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
I'm thinking Emacs might be very well-suited for voice recognition.
Think about it: Practically everything in Emacs is done with lisp functions, most of which have names that are basicly english. Obviously you could have the "undo undo undo" thing where the undo function is called, you could also have "revert buffer, yes", "compile", etc. And because Emacs is Emacs and has the "everything but the kitchen sink" aspect to it, you'll probably also have lisp functions for accessing a web browser, mail client, mp3 player, television via your tv card, lights and household appliances via X10, etc, etc, etc.
In comparison, try integrating voice recognition into a windowing system. I can't help but think of that IBM(?) commercial with the guy sitting on the park bench with pigeons all around, wearing a headset thing with voice recognition... "up up up up" as if he were using a mouse with his voice. How unelelgant can a user interface get?!
Yep, Emacs is gonna take over the world, or at least integrate all of its functionality. :)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
And there's another problem with your comment. Who on earth still listens to U2?
Re:drawbacks to VUI (Score:1)
Well not Ender's Game, but the other books in the series? You would get the computer's attention by subvocalizing "Jane", of course.
To me, v-mail would be so great. (Score:2)
if i didn't have a day job wearing me down, i think this would be a killer app for all those people with cams and mics laying around.
please, don't yap about "just grab some mpg and send it" -- i'm taking about something integrated, easy to use, and simple to configure.
---S.D.
Re:fp (Score:1)
--
Re:Telephony. (Score:2)
Custom-built tgiexec (tgi=Telephony Gateway Interface) scripts to be run from the ACS IVR system to give me details on the system, run commands, play back results, etc.
Considering cleaning it up for open source release in the near future. It's definitely way cool to be able to admin a Linux box with a telephone from anywhere in the world!
FreeSpeech (Score:1)
All right! (Score:2)
It just ticks me off when the computer mistakes me with Dave, is all.
drawbacks to VUI (Score:3)
Even if VUIs work perfectly, there are two major drawbacks that will make many people prefer GUIs:
1. Privacy. Do you really want to be saying things like "browse to pervert site dot com" or "send bankruptcy memo" out loud? Typing and clicking are more discreet.
2. Annoying others. I don't want to be in an office full of people babbling at their computers. I also don't want to be on a plane or in a restaurant near somebody babbling commands at his laptop. It's bad enough already with cell phones.
That being said, there will be a place for VUIs in critical hands-free situations such as in cars.
MS State != University of Missouri (Score:1)
Time Zone Games? (Score:1)
Shouldn't be happening much, but maybe the slashware isn't expecting some posters to be in non-standard timezones, or maybe their clock glitched.
VUI == Workplace Stress (Score:3)
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Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
However, rather than using it to control that weapons system he mentions (and I'm sure everyone is really into... car weapons...), what about a browsing with your wireless connection to the internet?
Think about it... Eventually even accessing your MP3 server via your wireless connection and ordering up your favorite album for the trip to work, all using voice recognition.
voice rec is cool... (Score:1)
1) At my office we have 387 people in one room and I'd go insane.
2) It doesn't work very well yet.
3) rm / -rf
4) etc
But my point is sure, voice rec may not be practical in every situation. Yes it is not very acurate right now. No, no one is going to be stupid enough to make a program so that anyone can just come up to your computer and start deleting whatever they want to. (unless they do crack and then all bets are off... *cough* *ms* *cough*)
The point of Voice Rec is not that it's practical, although it can be in certain situations, the point is that it's cool.
Let me put it this way: Word processors are practicle. But nobody cares about them. You just sit down type out your paper/letter/whatever, double space it, spell check it, save it and print it out. Nobody cares about that. It's just not interesting. You don't tell your friend, "Hey come over to my place and check out this cool word processor I got! It's rocking!!" It just ain't happenning.
But voice recognition on the other hand is cool. I could definately see coming back home and saying, "Hey computer play some music." That would be almost Star Trek like.
Star Trek is actually a good paradigm. They don't do everything through voice rec. Complex things are still done with a keyboard. And in a group setting they manage to keep the noise level down. Mostly when they do use voice rec they enter formulaic verbal commands but the commands are so natural that it seems like more AI is involved in parsing the commands than is actually the case. The people who keep talking about spelling out "rm / -rf" are applying a command line mindset to a verbal user interface but you really want to think out natural sounding commands. The vui Star Trek way is "computer, erase main memory." This is far more natural and would almost make you think the computer understands what you are saying.
You know what else about Star Trek? You never see them using word processors.
Re:VRS opensource possibilities for the disabled (Score:1)
The crappy motion-sensors on the doors could be better improved by just putting in *good* motion-sensors, perhaps not unlike the ones in Star Trek. I'd rather see the guys at Safeway spend an extra $3.99 for a better motion sensor (okay I really have no idea how much motion sensors cost) than have them go through the trouble of putting in voice recognition. I'm sure demand for employment at Safeway would go down once all the customers start yelling "OPEN DOOR!" whenever they leave or come in.
As for driving, well I understand that paraplegics can drive already with moderate success (enough that they can get around and not get into accidents anyway). True, quadreplegics are pretty much right out of luck, but I'm a bit skeptical as to how the "TURN RIGHT! No not quite that far. Just a little further now. The lane's open! GO! GO!" system would work. You'd be better off trying to abolish minimum wage so you can hire a driver for a dollar an hour.
Programming the VCR and TV might be a good use. Mind you if they're going to raise the price enough to put in the type of circuitry to do voice recognition, I'd just prefer they leave it as is and make the interface a bit responsive (what kind of ICs are these guys using anyway that it takes almost a full second just to scroll up or down in a menu?).
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:3)
"Play U2"
instead of:
find MP3 player icon, deiconize, click load, click U2 playlist, click OK, click play, iconize, put mouse back in editor window, recommence hacking
I think the quick verbal shortcut causes a much smaller disruption of concentration and saves a tone of screen real estate. For those of us insane people who have 6-7 emacs windows, 2-3 netscape windows and 3-4 xterms going on 4 virtual desks, this would be a HUGE benefit.
I can't tell you how much mental energy I have saved since I got a box with external volume control instead of a GUI volume tool. I think a voice interface would help in similar ways.
So, I think voice-assisted GUIs would be great, accelerating the experience just like keyboard shortcuts help keep experienced users sane today.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:3)
In text editors, I would like to say "oops" and automatically have the last word deleted. That would definitely speed me up, but my cubicle neighbors might get tired of hearing a constant stream of "oops... oops... oops" over the wall. I bet it wouldn't be hard to patch that into emacs...
Bruce's description of a voice-controlled car stereo is also good. This is especially interesting to me, because I am thinking of building an MP3 player for my car that will be a full X86 computer. How do you do a user interface that allows you to scroll through hundreds of albums and thousands of songs? While driving?
Voice command seems like the best solution. Say "Play... U2... Zooropa... Lemon", or "Play... Beethoven... Sixth Symphony". (imagine a little chime from the computer during each "..." to indicate it "got" it and is ready for more input.)
I should be able to operate that while driving without driving off the road. And, a well written voice command program could be pretty accurate for that application, since the set of valid inputs is reasonably small at each step.
I'm enthusiastic about the possibilities. I predict that once people have this, they will wonder how they ever survived with out it. Just like wheels on mice!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Actually this could bring about some good things. ;) ]. It sucks.
I once occupied a huge office in Menlo Park,CA. I had a 20' wide window view of the Sand Hill Rd area and the SF Bay. Now I am stuck in an 8'x8' cube [not much bigger than the new G4 Cube
With any luck, all these people talking to their computers will force companies to start giving people private offices again.
Well I can dream can't I?
Ender
Open Source vs. Design vs. Basic Research (Score:3)
- How to do speech recognition at all
- How natural languages express meaning using words and sentences
- How to integrate sophisticated speech recognition into user interfaces that will be useful/meaningful/interesting for users.
Research tends to happen either at universities or at commercial research labs like Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, and IBM, where people can spend a long time looking at hard problems; while that can happen in an open academic-type environment or a closed intellectual-property-hoarding secret laBoratory, research is a much different environment from design or implementation, which are closer to what open-source development processes are good at, which are things that amateurs can do using their own resources or that professionals (including advanced college students) can do that piggybacks off their own work, like hacking operating systems or compilers. We're fortunate that enough of the development of speech recognition has been open so it's accessible for use - learning how people make phonemes with their mouths, words out of phonemes and sentences out of words is an immense job if you have to reinvent it.Early user interfaces were simple - if your recognizer can only do 10-20 words, it doesn't take deep design research to design an interface - telephone companies do obvious things with 0-9/yes/no/help, and computer interfaces pick a dozen Mostly Harmless commands so that a misrecognized command or somebody walking down the hall talking doesn't trigger "rm -rf /", it just triggers ls or "play cd" or something. But now that voice recognition can handle vocabularies of hundreds or thousands of words, depending on your taste in accuracy and user-specific training, figuring out what good designs for interfacing with voice users that make sense in the environments you expect them to use is a large set of research problems. Open source is ok for doing implementations of specific proposals for what that interface should look like, and pretty good for tweaking existing designs to do more things, and really excellent for connecting the voice interface up to other things that are already written. But overall, it's a design problem, not a hacking problem.
As far as things I'd see that are useful that voice recognition interfaces can do, some are pretty obvious, like cellphone dialers and dictation tools - you'd like to tell your handsfree phone "call Alice" while you're driving, and have it look up Alice in a database, rather than typing or saying "+1-987-655-3210, er, umm that was 654-3210". (Some cellphone companies provide this - it's not based in your handset, but at the cellphone company's end, using a database lookup on your phone numebr to retrieve your voice settings and your list of names and phone numbers. If you're the canonical carpal-tunnel-abusing hacker, you'd like to dictate some of that business plan by voice using a voice editor that can stitch together words you've recycled from previous documents instead of having to mouse it in.
Beyond that there's a lot of open territory - it'd be nice to be able to walk down the street with a headset on or sit at a desk with a speakerphone or headset and tell your computers what you want them to do, who you want to communicate with, have them tell you stuff you want to know, etc. It's not a direct substitute for reading off a screen and pointing with a mouse; it'll change your workstyle just like adding GUIs and getting cellphones did.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Hardly! I'll happily attest to the power of the keyboard causing RSI.
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Re:Telephony. (Score:2)
This probably isn't a bug in the voice recognition software - its probably the company justifying *not* having the expense of having a live operator waiting to take the call by implying that it's a bug in the VR software...
You might think I'm being conspiratorial, but having worked in the telephony business for the last couple of years, I can say with all honesty that this is standard practice. Anything that will cut costs on telephone front lines, a company will do... particularly a large one like Sears, with its legions of consultants.
As for the misorder, well that would suck, but it wouldn't last long - there's definitely ways to ensure this doesn't happen, such as order verification before the customer hangs up...
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Are we talking about speech recognition or natural-language processing here? It seems to me that processing instructions like this generally and intelligently is a much more difficult task than recognizing which words have been spoken and will become practical (if ever) significantly after large-scale speech recognition is practical.
So, until natural-language processing is much more advanced, people using speech recognition will have to utter specific commands with specific options and syntaxes. Does this sound familiar? Will speech recognition offer significantly more than an aid for people who can't type very quickly?
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Re:voice rec is cool... (Score:1)
People seem to have a major problem seperating computer operation and input devices. Command Lines are great for keyboard input, GUI's are great for mouse input. Voice Recognition does not fit into either the command line, or the GUI.
There are some posts above, which advocate using Voice Recognition to augment the exisiting input methods (Keyboards and Mice), and maybe that is a short term solution. But personally, i think that Voice Recognition and Hand Writing recognition will be far more pervasive in the long term, possibly replacing the entire GUI/CLI combo for everyday use.
Oh, and by they way, i think Ben Cisco may use a type of "Word Processor", but that seems to be a more Handwriting Recognition/Stylus input system than straight typing
Re:Time Zone Games? (Score:1)
--
Re:A need for an "open source" speech database (Score:1)
This would have the added bonus that your computer would be able to learn Baachi.
$ cat < /dev/mouse
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
The obvious way of indicating context is by pointing. Voice control and the mouse could be a powerful combination, but speech recognition alone will leave the computer with too much ambiguity to resolve.
$ cat < /dev/mouse
Re:Recent discussion on the via voice mailing list (Score:2)
Look, how many open source projects were developed by people whose primary language isn't English (Finnish : Linux, German: KDE, etc.).
So IBM: Please internationalize VV for Linux.
Moving trained datasets from the windows software to linux isn't a solution.
The possibilities.. (Score:1)
"are em space dash eff capital arr space slash enter."
~ The BOFH
Re:Speech is only good for dictaton (Score:1)
Did anyone else notice ... (Score:1)
Do the editors input the time manually, and timothy mistyped?
Do the editors queue up stories and program them to be posted at certain times, but they decided to post this earlier?
Not trying to start
Xvoice (Score:2)
Information wants to be free
How practical is use of this technology? (Score:3)
I can maybe see controlling a speaker-phone or a TV with this, but button-based interfaces are pretty efficient for this as it is. I can maybe see using this for quick shortcuts on a computer, but again, current interfaces are pretty efficient.
For massive data entry or for extended interactive editing, this probably isn't practical (try giving a multi-hour lecture - not too comfortable, is it?).
So, I'm wondering where a verbal interface _is_ practical.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
Grandpa has macular degeneration and has only a small (peripheral only) ammount of vision left. With special glasses he can make out LARGE print with great difficulty. Speech recognition and synthesis can help people with his condition.
Grandma has muscular atrophy-- a form of muscular dystrophy. Moving a mouse for her can be a frustrating event, as clicking takes all the strength in her hand. When the button finally depresses, she's exerting so hard that the mouse slides away, missing the target! Speech recognition and sythesis can help people like her, too.
For the longest time my grandmother published two monthly newsletters-- with nothing but an IBM Selectric typewriter and her little photocopier. I wonder what she could have done with a good DTP package!
Jeff
Re:Xvoice (Score:3)
Re:Xvoice (Score:1)
Specific Importance of Open Source here... (Score:2)
The main reason is that VUI technology will eventually infiltrate most areas of technology, and by moving forward through open-source with voice recognition, we allow a much more diverse and portable array of technologies to blossom. Most likely, quicker than someone like Microsoft or IBM could move.
The problems I see, are stability and customer support. Can those be adequately supplied in the open-source community, or is that something delegated to the closed-source companies?
Re:Xvoice (Score:1)
What you need to do is make sure you have viavoice installed correctly. That is a dependency that MUST be satisfied. Go through the documentation to insure that you've initialized it properly (the process has changed slightly with the new release) make sure you're mic is working. Get grecord or soundstudio or just do a dd (from the viavoice documentation).
Compile and install the latest xvoice. Make sure its in your search path. Make sure that you have a ~/.xvoice directory (old versions skipped this step). In the
I hope you're not talking about gvoice, because I always seem to get compiler errors when trying that. Never got it to work and it certainly doesn't appear to updated at all.
And if you'd like some more information you can email me at seppanen@bresnanlink.net, and I'd be happy to help you figure it out.
I'm waiting for ViaVoice dictation for linux from IBM now. The training that is available in the SDK 3.0 has improved my dictation so much, I can't wait to actually add words to the dictionary it's using.
Later,
VRS opensource possibilities for the disabled (Score:1)
Just think of what could be done for the physically disabled. Doors wouldn't have to rely on those crappy motion sensors, toilets and showers would work by voice command, vehicles could be modified with all kinds of cool stuff like headlights, radio, voice-driven wheelchair doors, and even ignition (keys are hard to use on some vehicles because of the location of the ignition ofn the steering column).
It looks like with the toolkit you could develop your own voice-driven DVD, VCR, TV, stereo, or any other entertainment system too.
Surely now that the source is available people will build an industry out of the possibilities.
Well... (Score:1)
radical change? (Score:1)
What happened to open source Via Voice? (Score:3)
Well, at least there is some choice!
jcc
The first mainstream applications.... (Score:1)
PDA's could also benefit from useful voice recognition. Where the device is too small to support a standard keyboard, voice controls will eventually become the norm.
VUI concerns (Score:2)
When it can determine "Open Internet Explorer, go to www.slashdot.org, scroll down half way" or "Scroll down to the poll" or whatever -- THEN it will achieve wide-spread use. Not until then.
A need for an "open source" speech database (Score:5)
One project which addresses the problem is the Open Mind Initiative [openmind.org], and more specifically the Open Mind Speech Recognition [sourceforge.net] project, for which I am the coordinator. Our goal is to collect data from people on the internet and make that data available to people working on speech recognition with a GPL-like license. I think this is the key to having OSS speech recognition engines perform as well as the proprietary ones. The project is not very advanced yet, but any help would be really welcomed.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:3)
Can we use this kind of technology to teach? (Score:2)
software that will allow us to have a computer mentor that teaches foreign language?
and insists on correct pronounciation and grammar.
If we incorperated it into an OpenGL environment of somesort we could have language roll playing tutorials that allow someone to purchase a loaf of bread, milk, eggs and cigarettes in japanese. Total emmersion into the new language. Plus it would allow students to progress at their own pace.
spearheaded by closed-source vendors (Score:1)
Seeing as almost all open-source projects are started by people wanting to "scrach an itch", and most open-source hackers use a GUI just to have 40 terminal windows open, multiple system monitors, and a Mozilla window (OK, so I'm exagerating a bit), I can't see any fully open-source solution any time soon. The only place where such a system might be developed would be a University, and with corporations having more money to lure away the researchers, even that may not happen any time soon.
Or maybe I'm just being too pessimistic
Recent discussion on the via voice mailing list (Score:4)
I replied with the following-
I would suspect, that the primary reason [there are so few developers of via-voice] is the desire of (free software) programmers to not make their code dependent on non-free (as in speech) software. For better or worse, many Linux programmers will reject, out of hand, any library or software that is not based upon one of the standard free licenses (GPL, LGPL, BSD, NPL, Artistic, etc.).
Given that IBM is unlikely to change it's licensing terms in the near future, and that (free) programmers are unlikely to change their moral stance on using 'non-free' software. Development with viavoice will likely
be limited to commercial programmers, or those situations where STT/VTS are a necessity such as applications for the blind.
Tom M.
TomM@pentstar.com
In a latter post he asked our opinion on the IBM Public License. My reply was thus...
"I did a search on the web for discussions on the IBM Public License (IPL).
According to Bruce Perens, (and the general consensus...)- the IPL is OSD
(Open Source Definition) compliant, but not GPL compatible. Being OSD
compliant will certainly encourage more developers, however, how many is the
big question. Of the free software developers out there, my guess would be
that 80% (likely more?) will only develop (in their free time) with software
that is GPL compatible (i.e. GPL, LGPL, BSD, and a few others). However,
for 'work' stuff, the IPL is less problematic, and thus would lead to more
commercial development (not as much as the GPL, BSD, LGPL - but mostly for
'religious' reasons).
Personally, I would recommend going with the GPL, which would result in full
and quick integration with all of the Linux distributions, and allow source
from many useful GPL and LGPL projects to be integrated/merge with it. I'm
guessing that the developer good will from such an action would be
Phenomenal. The suggestion of another poster that viavoice should be viewed
as infrastructure is very valid. However, I'm a realist. There is almost
zero chance of IBM doing that unless they come out with their own Linux
distribution, and tout complete voice integration as the big selling point,
or, the dollar value of developer good will is high enough to justify
whatever future lost revenue would be. (I'd bet that it certainly would be-
having a 'truly free' voice software solution would be rather impressive.
The fact that viavoice isn't considered a drowning/dying product (I.e.
Netscape) or (in the case of Apple) one that was previously free - would be
all the more impressive.
So, given the above, I would say that changing to the IPL might well give vv
a strong pull for more developers, certainly enough to justify the change.
Of course, as suggested above, an even stronger case can be made for the
GPL.
Tom M.
TomM@pentstar.com
"
If you would care to contribute to the conversation, you can join by sending email to
join-viavoice@laser.sparklist.com
Thanks,
LetterRip
Tom M.
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
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Disabled users, security (Score:1)
When most people have some sort of entertainment device running off their computers (be it DVD, CD, VCD or even your automated front door) it would be of great advantage to have voice activation of these devices. A number of home stereos now have voice activation why not the computer? It maybe easy for most people to press a remote or something but what about the people who have troubles doing this.
At my UNI there are some doors with ethernet plugs in them to the toilet. At present you have to press a button on the wall to open these doors. This could possibly give another option. If there was access to a cheap voice activation system that worked this could then be done by more mobility challenged people. (just a personal observation)
One of the security authentication options is what you are. Speech is definitely one option for this. So in the future we may have a viable way of logging into your computer via voice. Which then given other authentication options could create a cheap secure option for most companies.
Bleh, its too early for me to think so ill leave it at that.
Re:drawbacks to VUI (Score:3)
"Lockscreen" as you walk away from your cube
"Mute" to silence your music when a colleague stops by to talk
"Raise" to bring a window to the front without moving your hands from the keyboard
"Print" when you're to lazy to type CTRL-P
All of these are low-mental-energy ways of doing things you can already do with a normal GUI. Just like the mouse simplified some aspects of the pure-CLI interface (think copy-and-paste), even sparse voice input can improve the current state of GUIs.
My experience with voice systems is pure hobby and very rudimentary, but I think I've read that simple keyword-driven voice systems are MUCH simpler free-dictation systems needed for, say, word processing via spoken word, so the examples above should be feasible now.
Their servers are down (Score:1)
Re:drawbacks to VUI (Score:2)
Has anyone investigated the idea of throat mikes for this sort of thing. You can be a lot more quiet with a throat mike since it's closer and you have no ambiant noise problem to deal with as a bonus.
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Remove the rocks from my head to send email
Speech is only good for dictaton (Score:2)
Re:VUI concerns (Score:1)
Re:Nintendo Dolphin (Score:1)
You can fully talk to and hold conversations with a virtual pet type fish in a fishtank. And their not just stupid little chats, you can hold a full conversation. He responds according to how you act and everything. Say something stupid and he will fake fun of you. Talk about the Playstation 2 and he makes fun of it. Pretty advanced stuff.
Whatever Batman :o) (Score:1)
Re:What speech packages run on Linux ($$$ or free) (Score:2)
Re:Did anyone else notice ... (Score:1)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Yes, and 640k should be about enough for anyone!
Who are you kidding? (Score:1)
Don't forget that Open Source people work for FREE and that the "closed source" guys are PAID. Who do you think is going to be on the cutting edge? The guys that are PAID to do it, since they don't have to cut into their free time just to get things done. That's the way society works...
www.niftyness.com
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Followup (Score:1)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
"Left...left...up....shoot...hurry...right...now down...no, up...oh, shit..." (view goes red with your character's blood)
I happen to be damned good at Minesweeper, but there's no way I'm going to get 70-second times for Expert having to speak each movement and click. Voice operation will have its role, but it'll never replace the GUI.
VUI applications (Score:2)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
The first thing offhand that I can think of is computer use for the visually impaired. People who are blind can more easily use computers with this sort of technology.
If this can make computers and technology more accessible to all, I think it's a good thing.
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Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:1)
Re:For more information... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not jump directly to the next wave after VUI (Score:1)
Think: kill process UID 4738 with -9
I just can wait for Post-Human devices! Can you imagine how great it would be if you could just "see" user interface components without any display. That is the computer directly linked to your brain. Reality mixed with artificial objects.
Re: Who are you kidding? (Score:1)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:4)
Just as GUIs weren't practical in 1980. Or pick an earlier year if you would dispute that. The point is that this idea is more than current technology can handle.
GUIs allow users to do more with less knowledge and less work if properly designed. For instance, it is easier to drag select several folders then drop them into the trash, than it is to explicitly name those directories in a CLI.
But the GUI didn't replace the CLI, it augmented it, and relegated it to a secondary function, or one for power users only. The Next Big Thing, will do the same.
I am one click away from reading new mail after it comes in, and I don't think it would be a great improvement to have to say outloud, "Read new mail." But for less experienced users, being able to say, "New message to Bob Jones, copy marketing team, blind copy Jon Bones. Dear Bob, I love you like the brother...." That's valuable, and would be quicker than CLI or GUI if it worked.
The challenges are myriad. How do you insure privacy? How do you achieve accuracy? (Though accuracy never stopped the CLI or GUI).
Re:The possibilities.. (Score:5)
No worries; your computer will dutifully add to the command line:
bash$ Our imps pace the chef cap a dull ours pace lashing turn.
which may give the grammar checker fits but which won't erase your hard drive.
Dude, screeners.... (Score:1)
Wow, this is so cool. Anybody have any
screenshots?
;)
Wow (Score:1)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:5)
There are three problems with voice apps right now.
First is the lack of off-the-shelf recognition. Dragon gets better than 90%, IBM ViaVoice MIGHT get about 60%, others score well below that. For someone with no hands and a non-technical nurse for day-to-day assistance, Dragon ends up being the choice for now. Mind you, an ideal system should be able to be installed with one or two clicks, and then be on Voice Recognition through the rest of the process, or it won't work for most of the physically impaired. As things stand, Dragon is all he can consider using, being that the other packages he has demo'd have all required AT LEAST 45 min of voice recognition training to be done at a given time prior to getting functionality. Given that the amount of time that most quads get with someone who knows a delete key from a return key is limited, most of these apps are pretty useless. Dragon is the only one that will let you do this at your leisure.
Second is impact on resources. Most disabled people dont have them. My friend's box is built out of donated parts. The software, Dragon, costs more than $400 and was donated as well. Now, Dragon gets that 90% and stability from running on at least 256M of RAM, on a 500 Mhz processor. Did I mention that these closed source software houses completely revamp their software every so often, requiring you to buy a completely new version just about whenever you upgrade your hardware? Additionally, my friend is one of the very lucky few to know anyone in the computer biz. There are three of us that spare time for him whenever we can, but most people are stuck buying their time. Think of what this means when it comes to upgrading every so often. Remember, you can't even hit a return key, much less open up your box. For that matter, neither can your nurse, really.
Third is actual usability. Most of these voice systems are designed for and by sighted people who can use their hands. 'Nuff said.
Ideally, it would take the efforts of several physically impaired people working with some coders to come up with a working Voice Recognition package that was open-sourced and designed with the impaired user in mind. It is nice that some of the framework apps useful for that type of project are now open-sourced.
Telephony. (Score:3)
Think e-commerce.
It's far easier for a consumer to pick up a phone and talk to a computer to place their order for X widgets than it is for them to log on to the Internet, type in a URL, etc. *Far* easier.
This will be the 'tractor app' for voice recognition, and in many cases it already is... Called AT&T customer support lately? Probably half of that call was handled by a computer listening to what you were saying...
Other posters are correct in saying that it may not seem appropriate right now, just like the WIMP interface didn't seem appropriate in the early 80's, but there *will* be uses for it.
I've already built a Telephony-based interface to my Linux web server. From anywhere in the country, I can call it up, get an uptime reading, ask for a running total of web orders, restart the web process, even shut the machine down, all over the telephone.
Telephones are an ideal interface to a computing system. Okay, so you're not gonna want to play Quake with it (though I'm sure some fool hacker will add it, heh heh), or play with the Gimp over the phone (hey, whatever turns you on), but there are plenty of interfaces that could be replaced with the telephone and be a *hell* of a lot easier for people to use - web forms, for example, could really easily be replaced with a voice recognition software-running dialup #...
Re:VUI concerns (Score:2)
Likewise with non-native speech. It's mainly a case of collecting enough training data. I've seen reasonably good research systems that work with Spanish-accented and Chinese-accented English.
Noise (Score:1)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
They're working on VUIs as a completely separate alternative to the GUI, or at best, some sort of voice augmentation to allow GUI functions.
Really making voice valuable requires a completely different type of interface, one that wil by its very nature, be pretty incompatible with the GUIs we have today. The reason for that is the way we use speech in intereacting. Pay attention to what you say *and do* when working in front of a computer screen with another person: What you'll find is that speech recognition alone is of little benefit unless coupled with some sort of gestural recognition system as well. In other words, even in a proper voice-enabled GUI, the GUI will need significant modification to be able to deal with the concept of "this" as indicated by a combination of the recognized word and pointer location. (Note what this implies for touchscreens. Personally, I think the touchscreen is one of the key reasons for the success of the Palm Pilot over other PDA concepts - pointing directly is just the natural way to interact.) Further, there's a lot of assumed knowledge that goes into good vorec - that knowledge has to live somewhere, and be created somehow (possibly by learning, possibly by manual priming or copying another's setup and biulding on that.) Take the "Play U2" command someone mentioned elsewhere in this thread. That's pretty ambiguous, even if you understand that U2 is the name of a band and that the user wants to play some music files with that attribute. But which files? Any at random? Just Rattle and Hum, in album order? Or just With or Without You over and over, the song that's starting to mend your recently broken heart? That knowledge has to exist somewhere, and although it's not strictly part of the VUI, a voice interface can't have much value without it.
Until this sort of integration happens, so that the GUI and voice recognition work together, niether UI will reach anything like its full potential, and no one is likely to implement them piecewise, simply beause they don't provide sufficient value that way. Interestingly, it may well turn out to be the deep pocketed outfits like Microsoft that will make all this happen at once. I hate to say it, but I'd bet they pull good voice integrated interfaces off before the open source guys do, simply because of the nature of the problem and its solutions. The bazaar probably won't cut it for this sort of thing, and I think that's why we see MS pouring all those R&D dollars into the sorts of problems that are best addressed by a wholistic (some might say dictatorial) approach. I'm not saying the open source folks couldn't make this happen, just that they won't make it happen without significant changes to the way things are done.
(Note to the IBM guys, if you're reading this: I'm already an IBM employee and would love to work on vorec, if you can deal with someone in Austin...)
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
Also, sonic dead environments can be engineered w/o too much trouble, like the acoutic isolation boxes in the new parliament building in The Hague. Perhaps sonically dead cubes would catch on for these applications.
Any communications involving the phone could benefit from this tech, and as cellphone use grows, so does the potential of this tech.
Finally, disabled users could benefit greatly from speech-recognition as well.
The reality is, we probably haven't thought of half of the potential applications of the technology because it has always been so crappy. Build it, and someone will find a way to make money off of it, or try.
FWIW, I used to do some Linguistics research and, IMHO, speech recognition is an unfathomably large problem within a problem to solve. Brute force methods like pattern matching will only go so far.
In many places...if it's good enough (Score:2)
So there are many areas where it could be usefull...IF the technology is good enough, and good enough is almost at the level of StarTrek - so we are a few years off.
The big challenge here is not so much the actual recognition, but the parsing - you have to be able to format highlevel queries for it to be of use
"Computer, show me a list of slashdot articles which includes the phrase ''I love pizza'' and where written this month"
"Computer, if we close the Lockheed branch how will it affect next years production of widgets"
"computer, record all episodes of StarTrek, that's wednesdays at 7 on channel 8. Keep doing this until i tell you to stop. Tell me when you need a new tape. And remember to edit out the commercials"
Programming is unlikely to benefit from this in the short term, because clearly it would be faster (for those of us who use all our fingers in the typing phase :) to type it in - but the day may come where programming takes place at such a high level that one is manipulating large data abstraction modules, rather than "Goto oops"
Re:How practical is use of this technology? (Score:2)
It's just that I can type better than I can speak ! It's a pity that no one actually gives the keyboard credit for doing what it does so well.
Re:The possibilities.. (Score:2)