Bill Gates Still Believes Speech Will Replace Keyboards
from the the-product-of-the-future... dept
Bill Gates has been an incredibly successful businessman, but that doesn't mean he's particularly good at predicting the future of technology. Remember his claim that spam would be gone within 2 years... which he made in 2004? However, if there's one prognostication that Gates just can't let go of, it's his belief that speech recognition will replace keyboards as the preferred input device for computers. He's been saying it for years and years and years, without much to show for it. I had thought (hoped?) that he'd realized maybe he was wrong on this one, but apparently not. In a recent speech, he's insisting that speech recognition (and touch screens) will start to surpass keyboards as the input method of choice for many people. I was going to go back and put together a list of the times he had predicted that in the past, but it appears that Matthew Paul Thomas already did that a few years ago. Note that his earliest predictions (starting in 1997) were that speech would surpass keyboards within a decade. This quote is from October 1997:
"In this 10-year time frame, I believe that we'll not only be using the keyboard and the mouse to interact, but during that time we will have perfected speech recognition and speech output well enough that those will become a standard part of the interface."If you go to Matthew's site, you'll find a lot more like that, continuing on through the years, with some different prediction time frames. This isn't to say that speech recognition hasn't gotten a lot better, and isn't used in many more ways today than it was in the past -- but it's not come anywhere close to replacing a keyboard for a variety of good reasons that have much less to do with technology than with how people work. Imagine just how noisy your typical office would be if you had to speak to your computer rather than type? Typing isn't used just because it's efficient, but because it lets people work without disturbing others, and without letting everyone else know every little thing that you're doing. Yes, speech recognition technology is getting much better and it's useful in some situations, but it's certainly not the perfect interface for an awful lot of what people do on a computer.
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still a long way to go
Imagine an office with 200 staff and everyone is talking to their computers, you'll have a very noisy office! Don't get me wrong, speech recognition is good and it's cool, but the problem is you have to have a pretty good AI model before you can get people to use speech recognition for real, i.e. you have to have the computers doing 90% of the work and keep the user input as minimum as possible before you can make speech recognition work for real. Sorry Bill, like the author said, you are not that good at predicting the future of technology!
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model m forever
I would never give up my IBM Model M keyboard. But it may be the one keyboard that would be louder than speech recognition...
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I've seen worse
I recall seeing a quote from Marvin Minsky that machine intelligence would surpass human intelligence in perhaps as little as three years. This was back about 1970 or thereabout.. I've since lost the book it was in, and can't find any record of it in the web today unfortunately. The book (I'm fairly sure this was the book it was in) was named "The Digital Villain; notes on the numerology, parapsychology, and metaphysics of the computer"
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I dont think you can call his predictions wrong...may be things arent moving as fast as expected.
I mean, my comp can log me in by both speech and facial recognition, I would call that progress in the right direction.
Its funny to hear people always associate anything Bill Gates says to computers. Using speech and touch recognition is is already widely used in phones, kiosks, kitchen equipment, stores etc to name a few.
I-Phone and Microsoft surface is just the beginning....
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Bah
Keyboard is more efficient. I use macros. Hitting the up button takes less time then saying "up" and using macros means I can type common words FAR faster then I say them. 'course I've MEMORIZED the macros I made.
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Perhaps' once you get beyond...
"Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"
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hey mike - who the hell are you - a lousy writer for a lousy website to HOPE a great man whos done more for this world than your entire bloodline has ever or will ever do to criticize
die of a heart attack, please.
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Re:
Heh.
I don't know what it is about you Mike. But you sure attract retards, rejects, and wannabe trolls like no other blogger I know.
More to the point, this blog is a *lot* more professional than most blogs. Course many blogs tend to be livejournal clones.
Funny how they alwasy trot out the same argument too: "what have you ever done?"
Well you Anonymous Cowards, if you hadn't noticed Mike has created a website that has grown in popularity rather than dissapear into oblivion. Furthermore he's actually created a pretty nifty analyst business that real companies are actually using.
Meanwhile, you let some guy's blog get to you and seem to think that famous people can do no wrong. Or you are just really really bad at trolling and need to stop because you'll never ever get any better.
I suppose they are good for the laughs but still. You'd think they'd be embarassed with themselves at this point.
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Re: Re:
Yeah, Trolls respond to the smell of success with mindless hatred.
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Re: you idiot
Bill Gates is not a great man, he is a rich man and made many good business decisions. He is also terrible at predicting where technology is going, apparently. M$ is not the greatest this ever, not to mention this prefect creation your harsh defense of the owner of the business that made it would make it seem you believe.
By the way, learn some English, please, before posing that mess. The you won't sound like such an idiot :)
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Bill Gates deserves more thanks and less criticize
Bill Gates has made our lives tremendously easier and has accomplished more in just over 40 years than 98% of people could accomplish in 200 years. Everyone has dreams and makes predictions and most of these dreams and predictions don't come true. So a few of Bill Gate's predictions didn't come true. Before you criticize him maybe you should look out how many dreams and predictions you have had that actually came to be and than at how many of Bill's that have come true. Maybe once you realize that he has been right about a lot more than you have been right about you will be less keen to criticize him.
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He-He-He
Billy owes me some money, LOOOOOTSSSS of money
Bu-ha-ha...............................
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Keyboards and Abacuses
Anybody seen a slide rule lately?
The idea that touchscreens and speech interfaces can't replace keyboards in large offices is just as short-sighted as believeing that the slide rule would have to stay around because it could do logarithms and you wouldn't have to worry about the battery in critical applications.
Maybe we can't see it right now, but we'll find a way to impelement it because speech-based word processing already is a more efficient use of time. You can do more faster, and you can free up your hands for other tasks than simple data entry, such as for information retrieval. That's the bottom line. The only problems we need to overcome are interface control --
and the aforementioned noise factor. But I really don't think it's an insurmountable problem. Besides, the diminishing importance of large workstation farms means that they will not be such an important organizational structure that they will forestall the introduction of the touch/voice interface.
It's coming, ready or not.
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Did you read the quote before you wrote this? o.O
I didn't click through to the other predictions, but from the one you quoted, I don't see anything untrue about it - that prediction has already come to pass with many devices we use currently.
Also, in your article, you keep saying that Gates said "voice will replace keyboards" - but if you read that quote, Gates is saying that keyboards and voice would be used in tandem, not that voice would replace anything.
Many, many people use dictation software on a daily basis. I can say "Call Jane" to have my cell phone auto-dial a number. I use voice exclusively when talking to friends online (when once upon a time we used keyboards to send instant messages). If you call just about any company out there, you'll get a message "Please say the name of the department you'd like to speak with". Most public terminal computer systems are touch-screen based... The list goes on and on.
Again, I didn't click through, and so there may have been some larger claims made which didn't hold water, but what you had to say about the quote you quoted was completely off base.
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short and long term answer: nope, never
Here's one of many issues.
Handicap requirements for accessability and standards, people who are incapable of speaking, people who do not wish to speak, language barriers that are easier to convey messages by typing than speaking. None of those categories are ever going to go away and they are certainly large groups.
With that said, don't expect to ever see speech replacing a keyboard in any lifetime. Not mine, and not the next. I mean really if someone can market (and sell out) 1500$ keyboards that are so well engineered that they represent the next generation of keyboards do you really think that keyboards are going to go away? That is a permanent flourishing market, even if speech recognition (or even brain recognition) goes 100%.
Another failed Microsoft announcement full of lies, just like the "we're interoperating" claim (for what, the 12th time now?)
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Not likely
Yeha sure it'll replace alot of commands, but take over the keyboard, no way. You think im gonna be talkign dirty to my computer to send messages to my gf? LOL. It'll be like Star Trek.. a combo deal.
Peace out
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Re: He-He-He
By day, I make a living as a voice over artist, certified by telephone doctor, and can pass as a man or woman in my recordings. At night, I troll on blogs telling people about who owes me money and have dreams of striking it rich by litigation.
this is supposed to be in the stealing "Dating Profiles" story...
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Gates, and by extension Microsoft, have never done anything but buy (maybe) and sell other people's innovations. They bought DOS. Xerox made the first mouse/windows system.
Gates had a talent for being in the right place at the right time, but when has he EVER done anything to advance UI?
If anybody is right it is going to be Apple. There was some recent speculation that they are going to merge multi-touch, pointing, and typing into a single device.
I for one will NEVER talk to my computer. And I don't want my computer to talk to me. I'm not wild about the idea of people listening to my interactions. Multi-touch is far more interesting to me.
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I actually prefer to type. Being a gamer, there are already 'voice chat' options available, but I find it annoying really. I prefer to just stick to the keyboard.
I have no doubt personally, my written communication skills are much better than my oral communications, maybe it's the extra time you have when typing to polish off the concept you are trying to convey and the way you want to deliver it that are more of a benefit to me, can't say. I recall when I was younger when computers were just starting to become 'personal' that one of the things I found most interesting was typing.
Although, voice recognition will have it's place, I don't really find it as desirable of an option as typing, generally.
Heck - even now where I work, the IT staff can always call each other, of course - but most choose to use Instant Messages. Perhaps for counter-intuitive reasons many people actually prefer to type. Or maybe it's really just the convenience offered with a text based communication that, in many ways - at times actually beats oral communications. Just because something is quicker, doesn't necessarily mean it's better or more efficient. If so - why is email even amongst relatives and friends a very popular communication method, when they could just call on the phone?
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I like speech recognition in vista. The only problem is I am almost always listening to some sort of audio (Music/Shows/Movies) and that makes it useless.
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Think
All you smart dudes seem to be limiting yourself to the office. What about all those applications where a keyboard is not available. We are living in an ever more digital environment. Use your imagination. You can already talk to your phone and your Northstar system, soon you'll be telling the toilet to flush!
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Re: Did you read the quote before you wrote this?
I'm glad to see someone else is awake. Feels lonely, doesn't it?
Have a good day!
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Bill is right
Speech is the next logical evolution. As we continue to pack more power into the device, be it hand held or PC, and improve the capabilities of the recognition software, speech will replace tactile UIs.
The noise factor is a non-issue. Speech would be much quieter than an IBM Selectric and there are always ways to dampen or cancel it.
Sit back, relax, and have a chat with your techology.
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Who would listen to Gates anyway, he and his company have managed to keep software at least 15 years behind where it would be if his dad had pulled out early and he had been shot off on the wall. It's sad how much damage a few bad seeds, Gates, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, etc, can do to this world in such a short time.
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...how would call centers work if the person answering the phone had to speak your details into the computer?
"Name please?"
"John Smith"
"John... backspace, backspace. Highlight jun. Delete. John."
And so on. Although I guess call centers would be more fun to listen to, especially the ones where every answerer has a strong accent.
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I doubt reguardless of the future that keyboards will ever be completely replaced. I am sure a lot of people will be uncomfortable speaking the IMs they want to send to their wife or gf and just in general especially when others can hear them. I think we need to drop speech recognition and just go to mind-to-computer interface to cut down the work even more for us lazy people.
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Speech Recognition
I think it is just a matter of time before something else replaces the keyboard...Speach Recognition, Thought Recognition or that something we have yet to imagine...
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A quick writeup..
A quick write up courtesy of the Iron Chef School Of Scientific Endeavor And Snacks (Thanks, Angela Gunn, I think...):
So it wasn't long ago (Maybe fifteen months?) when Microsoft closed on the Voice Recognition software company, TellMe.
You have to hand it to them- the final product doesn't look too shabby. Especially considering they've already executed on a go-to-market strategy with software (ResponsePoint), hardware vendors and also engaged a VAR channel.
Having acquired a mature and robust speech engine may help drive more product dev work in this area and replace/complement the keyboards.
I remain more interested in touchscreen application and OneNote.
So someone said something about the Surface Computer, and it seems like a niche product, hopefully it can really improve productivity. So from a product/branding perspective, it probably would have been better for Surface to debut with AT&T or Verizon in addition to TMobile. Why? Well, these carriers seem to have a customer base thats business focused, whereas TMo appears to focus on the value-conscientious customer, so Surface would probably have better day-to-day visibility to businesses who could afford a kiosk or want to implement a kiosk strategy. It's the weekend and I'm too lazy to go research the numbers, but a few searches through some 10K filings of VZ or T may give insight to customer segments.
Anyways, enough rambling. Check out ResponsePoint-
http://www.microsoft.com/responsepoint/
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Anyone heard of Sync before? That seems to be a pretty popular use of speech recognition, and there will be many more.
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Steve Jones...
Did you honestly just compare Bill Gates to Hitler, Lenin and Stalin? Are you really that childish?
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Right.
Lets see a software development environment working with speech recognition :D
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Not to say
Not to say speech recognition is useless: But I can type faster then I can talk. Honestly it would work best if used the same way as the mouse... a third input channel
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Bill's Predictions of the future
Gates has a history of not too well thought out predictions. He once stated no one would ever need a personal computer more powerful than the IBM PC AT with a 80286.
To be fair I admit I use speech recognition (SR) for dictating memos and articles and it works quite well. But I could never use SR for the complex tasks I do like, as someone else here has given as an example, software development.
I design computer embedded medical equipment. I would never allow an SR system interface in life supporting machines.
SR will only work when AI has developed to the point where the computer has rudimentary intelligence, a sort of idiot savant expertize on the subject being controlled by the software. This way an interpretation can be made based on the context. The computer will not interpret "center the asterisk" as "render the asparagus" in a publishing application.
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Have you actually tried speech recognition?
Most of the people I know who attack speech recognition tried it five years ago or haven't tried it at all.
I recently bought a popular voice recognition product and, after having stuck with it through the training phase, use it daily for everything from e-mail to writing blog entries. For me, dictating text using this software is now faster and more accurate than typing.
Like millions of people, I work in an office with a door and don't disturb anyone when dictating.
Frankly, I can't believe we're still typing as much as we are when audio text alternatives exist that cost less than $200. I also can't believe voice recognition isn't built into hand-held devices such as PDAs.
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Bill is right
Speech recognition will become more and more commonplace. It will not completely replace all manual input, but one day we could find ourselves talking to our computer like a regular person: "Computer, can you look up information on " or "Computer, display all movies showing between 6pm and 9pm tonight within a 10 mile radius".
It's really not that far off. I remember 5 years ago how bad dictation software was and how its fail rate was. There definately is a vast improvement in the dictation software.
I'm not going to say a timeframe, but I do believe that it's only a matter of time before speech will be the preferred interface control for personal computers in a private office or at home.
There will always be manual inputs, and situtions where speech input is not recommended. Doesn't mean that speech won't become a valuable part of computers in the future.
Bottom line is, Bill may be wrong on timelines, but his goals of integrating speech, and getting rid of spam, are good ones and practical ones. They just take a lot of time to figure out.
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Re:Have you actually tried speech recognition?
Thats great... Now walk out of your office and listen to the cacophony of noise coming out of the cubicles you may or may not manage.
And see if the cubicle farm is more productive because you have loud talkers screaming at their computers and the computer in the next cubicle is taking the commands from the loud talker and screwing over the person in the cubicle.
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Straight talking
Ex-Chairman Bill seems to come up with a new breakthrough technology every so often. How about handwriting instead of typing? I have some problems with speech...
3. Talking code? Maybe I could get used to it...
2. Ever tried talking non-stop for an hour, such as at a public speaking engagement? Vocal cords only last so long. 8-10 hours a day, every day? Some people could train to keep up that pace. Not me.
1. I'm already crammed into a grid of cubes. Loud phone calls echo throughout the room. A room full of people talking to their computers, non-stop? Shut Up!
The next big breakthrough will be neural implants that allow us to "type" without moving our fingers. Or not. I don't have $50b to get people to listen.
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Re: Re: you idiot
"the you wont"
yea.
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Re: Re: Re: you idiot
"not to mention this prefect creation your harsh defense of the owner of the business that made it would make it seem you believe."
huh?...wait for it...yea.
all im sayin is that mike didnt need to be such a dick in his post..he coulda said it a lot nicer
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All predictions are terrible. I read The Road Ahead, which Bill Gates wrote sometime around 1995. It was full of musings about stuff that would be cool, disguised as predictions..."suchandsuch will happen," instead of "suchandsuch should happen for these reasons, and here's how technology could progress to that level."
I also read The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil, and it was the same thing. Futurism is always just a lot of boring masturbation, no matter who's writing it. Even when you can see echoes of what they meant years or decades later, it's very far off from the description. This kind of thinking is important, I'm not saying otherwise...but speaking as a non-developer, the signal-to-noise ratio is extremely high.
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* signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low
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Re: Re:Have you actually tried speech recognition?
Reply to Anonymous Coward:
This may come a surprise but not everyone works in a cubicle. Many people work at home or areas out of earshot from other workers.
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Get your shit straight
Alright, so Bill Gates does believe in developing a better speech recognition system, but that is not his only goal.
Like he stated in his recent speech, he believes the future is NUA (Natural User Interface).
His vision (although I find this a little crazy myself) is that every surface in your office, and possibly home, will be a computer screen.
So if you have to make a note, you take out your special stylus and write it on your coffee table.
After you write the note on the table you can go to your cell phone/PDA and read that note, lets say you write "Pick up Joe from airport March 13th @ 3pm" on the table. Your phones calender now has a new reminder in it, even if its buried in your work bag.
Thats pretty handy for taking a phone message even with no paper or pen around huh?
Another vision of his is: You're writing on your white board and one of your clients sends you a video message. Well just click the new message icon flashing at the top of your white board and watch it right there, no time lost.
So to sum things up, he believes in Natural User Interface to be the future, which includes speech.
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what's next
I do not see voice replacing keyboards at least not in all devices although I would like it to in my cell phone I sdee voice being used more in portable devices as well as somthing like multitouch and keyboards still ruling the desk with the adition of somthing like multitouch oh just look to apple they almost always get it right
gui
mouse
usb
Ipod
multitouch
what's next
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why
Who the heck wants it.....touch is cool....and maybe some speech for somethings but in general.....ummm NO!
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Re: Bill Gates deserves more thanks and less criti
Are you kidding me???
BILL HAS MADE MY LIFE A LIVING HELL!!!
I have to worry about viruses.
I have to worry about spyware.
I have to worry about why my laptop takes 10 minutes to start up now.
I have to worry about why I get little pop-up windows CONSTANTLY in the lower right hand corner. (God I hate this!)
I have to worry about why my mobile phone sucks at browsing the internet.
For years Microsoft has not rectified any frustrations I have regarding their products...and now they have an idiot running the company.
God! I am so stressed!!!!!!
I think I feel better now.
Thank you
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Re: Get your shit straight
Yeah, I admit Wes, these ideas would be pretty cool, but it's going to take time for adoption. From a 5280-foot view, all the sociopolitical changes in the past eight years is going to make people scared to trust a pervasive-data strategy this radical, at least initally.
NUI is cool tech, but if it doesn't add productivity, it's going to be a hard sell. So work backwards, the last think you want to do is shock your customers to another platform because it's unfarmilliar. As a starting point, ask how do you economically get a tablet and OneNote into these peoples hands? Don Tapscott says "Personal Use is the Precondition to Any Understanding." If people see OneNote being used in the office, it will spawn the upgrades. Then once they are comfortable with a touchscreen and you've reached critical mass, consider moving in for bigger fish like NUI.
But it's a drastic change for an "old-timer".
I'm really just throwing this out there- but whats the % of Fortune 100 companies who upgraded to Office 2007? Maybe there's an opportunity.
Here's a thought- If it won't break Office 2003, make available, to the Public, Word08 upgrade for six months or say, 500k copies at a jaw-dropping price with no phone support. (Whatever it is, it must be below the psycological $49.99) Also silently include OneNote.
Once comfortable, whatever they write will look great with the stylesets, and their work product would become a trojan horse for a O2008 site license.
Next, (and here's where the viral thing comes into play) The techies will wonder what this OneNote thing is. To drive tablet adoption, include a $50 instant rebate (Key Point- You got to work out the logistics to make it an instant rebate, and the Rebate Value has to be above the $49.99 psycological pricepoint.) for any touchscreen laptop. I imagine many techies will find themselves eyeballing a new Vista laptop for personal use that has a touchscreen within a few weeks. Then they essentially become your salesperson for a widescale hardware upgrade with their tablet at work.
Anyways, just some thoughts. That's how I'd do it anyway.
Then onto developing the pervasive data strategy, etc etc etc.
Everybody wins.
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Other Uses
Speech recognition is only going to be really useful for two things: home automation (so you don't have to looking for a terminal) and AI. I mean, who wouldn't want to talk to an AI?
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It takes time...
The next big thing won't necesarily be total control over speech... we have to think in incremental stages and include the future steps in the plan... It won't be just a keyboard and mouse... or just those with speech... what about the inclusion of contacts that track eye focus on a particular point on the screen... video game controls are around the corner that will make todays HUD look silly... stop complaining about what Bill says it'll be and let's really figure it out. The major point that his statements are making is that it will not be what it is today. Here is the quote that reminds me of this: "The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it." - Mark Weiser (ubiquitous computing)
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mmm
touch screens yes, speech programs no
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Re: Did you read the quote before you wrote this?
The only quote I see in Mike's post is not from Bill Gates - it's from Matthew Paul Thomas.
That said, I haven't clicked through either, so I don't know what Gates actually did say.
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Why does anyone even listen to Gates's ideas? He and Microsoft have done more to lower the average level of computer knowledge than anyone or anything else.
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Speech recoginition
This seems impractical for the work place. While I type I often talk to people at my desk. I also type while I'm on the phone. I don't see being able to do either of these things if I have to talk to my computer.
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Minority Report
Cognotive Psychologists and Neuroscientists will back me up on this...
Visual processing and certain Actions are much faster then speach.
Speach takes up more brain activity then just about any other type of brain function, and is therefore slower.
Language can also be interpreted in multiple ways
The future will be in presenting us with MORE densely layered VISUAL information and allowing us to PHYSICALLY manipulate it.
I know this has all been said before....
Think of Tom Cruise in the movie, "The Minority Report"
Projectors, Layering images, 3D imaging, Holography, etc. coupled with Gesture technology is the true future
atleast from a speed of cognition perspective.
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I disagree
Bill Gates isn't wrong, his timing is just inaccurate. Spam is technically gone with the right set of filters. You can't stop spammers completely, it's impossible. However you can regulate the amount of spam a person receives and I think that's what Bill was trying to say 4 years ago. The keyboard is out dated technology for an out-dated world. Believe me, when speech recognition is further developed, it will take the place of the modern keyboard.
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Re: still a long way to go
When speech recognition is fully in place, Office buildings will be gone as everyone will be working from home. :)
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Old man has it right- no keyboard or mouse here!
Keyboard AND mouse are not any longer necessary (and the speech activation I just leapfrogged until the tech catches up). A tool that has a form factor of a bic ballpoint pen is better- and more natural - but those with big bucks have inventory to dump and cheesy intermediate versions to hock on you already in the pipeline. Earlier example of current tech being modified rather than the great tech leap occuring to leach out value and profit away from the purchaser: "Since CCD, a 4 gig hard disk drive, and DV (digital video in any form, we all could have been using video cameras that do not tax our time (and wear out a hundred times faster) by using tape" I look back and 4 of the last 6 video cameras (one at a time) could have just been a hard disc, CCD, and the DV format" I liken this article's creator (WITH RESPECT) to the boy who cried "Sheep"- when Mr Gates cried "Wolf" at seeing the wolf take away a baby- (our cash). He is calling it from the top of the heap- and a real view we can only dream upon. Pay attention. Yes, Man is going to be doing a lot of waving of hands in air for next X years- but voice will be back in under ten by far. (it is already here in most ways) (dragon speak naturally speaking program) Interestingly, Mr Gates is the wolf also. Might want to pay attention to him. Again, the Wii-mote and Johnny Lee (CMU) system works great- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ It uses, (I use) what looks like a bic ball point pen, and I now run my computer by looking DOWN at my desk-with the XP desktop superimposed. Nothing like a quantum leap forward by leaping backwards reciprocally (think about it- this is THE new system- nobody notices the return to Pen!!!!!) Yes if you want this setup you need a modest low intensity projector- about 400 dollars- but if you want it on your computer monitor (that you are looking at now) that is free. Typing? Just run the handicapped feature in XP accessibility features and voila! no keyboard on my desktop except a virtual "touch-sensitive" (on the wooden desktop) one that disappears the instant I do not need it. In other words the keyboard no longer exists, except as light on the desktop. Search parameters (youtube has a very clear demo of all three "new" technologies- VR desktop, Whiteboard, and finger tracking) Wii Lee Whiteboard VR or any combo. Geez 42 dollars is a lot of money to replace a 60 dollar Natural Keyboard and a 50 dollar trackball. NOT> C'mon America! Pull your head out and start DOING IT YOURSELF. Bill Gates is just as helpless as President Bush in aiding you with your problems with computing. Stop blaming and criticising others when you could fix the problem(s) yourself! I believe in all of you- get with it- I wanna (like Mr Lee says) "See some games and new applications" now that the hard part (holographic VR desktop, and whiteboard) is done and working perf. Best to all. Rock On. Mike
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Old man has it right- no keyboard or mouse here!
Keyboard AND mouse are not any longer necessary (and the speech activation I just leapfrogged until the tech catches up). A tool that has a form factor of a bic ballpoint pen is better- and more natural - but those with big bucks have inventory to dump and cheesy intermediate versions to hock on you already in the pipeline. Earlier example of current tech being modified rather than the great tech leap occuring to leach out value and profit away from the purchaser: "Since CCD, a 4 gig hard disk drive, and DV (digital video in any form, we all could have been using video cameras that do not tax our time (and wear out a hundred times faster) by using tape" I look back and 4 of the last 6 video cameras (one at a time) could have just been a hard disc, CCD, and the DV format" I liken this article's creator (WITH RESPECT) to the boy who cried "Sheep"- when Mr Gates cried "Wolf" at seeing the wolf take away a baby- (our cash). He is calling it from the top of the heap- and a real view we can only dream upon. Pay attention. Yes, Man is going to be doing a lot of waving of hands in air for next X years- but voice will be back in under ten by far. (it is already here in most ways) (dragon speak naturally speaking program) Interestingly, Mr Gates is the wolf also. Might want to pay attention to him. Again, the Wii-mote and Johnny Lee (CMU) system works great- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ It uses, (I use) what looks like a bic ball point pen, and I now run my computer by looking DOWN at my desk-with the XP desktop superimposed. Nothing like a quantum leap forward by leaping backwards reciprocally (think about it- this is THE new system- nobody notices the return to Pen!!!!!) Yes if you want this setup you need a modest low intensity projector- about 400 dollars- but if you want it on your computer monitor (that you are looking at now) that is free. Typing? Just run the handicapped feature in XP accessibility features and voila! no keyboard on my desktop except a virtual "touch-sensitive" (on the wooden desktop) one that disappears the instant I do not need it. In other words the keyboard no longer exists, except as light on the desktop. Search parameters (youtube has a very clear demo of all three "new" technologies- VR desktop, Whiteboard, and finger tracking) Wii Lee Whiteboard VR or any combo. Geez 42 dollars is a lot of money to replace a 60 dollar Natural Keyboard and a 50 dollar trackball. NOT> C'mon America! Pull your head out and start DOING IT YOURSELF. Bill Gates is just as helpless as President Bush in aiding you with your problems with computing. Stop blaming and criticising others when you could fix the problem(s) yourself! I believe in all of you- get with it- I wanna (like Mr Lee says) "See some games and new applications" now that the hard part (holographic VR desktop, and whiteboard) is done and working perf. Best to all. Rock On. Mike
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Old Man..Sorry.. what happened to paragraphing.. I
Paragraphing lost during HTML transition.
Rewritten:
Mr. Gates opens a door rather than letting you look in the window by making this announcement- and the point is missed- too easy to understand>??????
Keyboard AND mouse are not any longer necessary (and the speech activation I just leapfrogged until the tech catches up). A tool that has a form factor of a bic ballpoint pen is better- and more natural.
Those with big bucks have inventory to dump and cheesy intermediate versions to hock on you already in the pipeline.
Earlier example of current tech being modified rather than the great tech leap occuring to leach out value and profit away from the purchaser:
"Since CCD, a 4 gig hard disk drive, and DV (digital video in any form, we all could have been using video cameras that do not tax our time (and wear out a hundred times faster) by using tape" I look back and 4 of the last 6 video cameras (one at a time) could have just been a hard disc, CCD, and the DV format"
I liken this article's creator (WITH RESPECT) to the boy who cried "Sheep"- when Mr Gates cried "Wolf" at seeing the wolf take away a baby- (our cash).
Mr Gates is who he is- in a Attitude worthy of attention.
He is calling it from the top of the heap in some tangible ways.- and a real view we can only dream upon. Pay attention.
Yes, Man is going to be doing a lot of waving of hands in air for next X years- but voice will be back in under ten by far. (Hands will get tired, and laziness being the mother of invention it will happen pronto) (it is already here in most ways) (dragon speak naturally speaking program)
Interestingly, Mr Gates is the wolf also. Might want to pay attention to him.
Again, the Wii-mote and Johnny Lee (CMU) system works great-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ
It uses, (I use) what looks like a bic ball point pen for "mouse", and I now run my computer by looking DOWN at my desk-with the XP desktop superimposed upon it.
Nothing like a quantum leap forward by leaping backwards reciprocally.
A great idea is like fire- it takes off- some reader out there may realize the immensity of this- and get the word out.
"A return to Pen and Paper" (virtual paper)
Yes, you need a modest low intensity projector- about 400 dollars- but on your existing computer screen it is free.
Typing? Just run the handicapped feature in XP accessibility features and voila! no keyboard on my desktop except a virtual "touch-sensitive" one
In other words the keyboard no longer exists, except as light on the desktop.
Geez 42 dollars is a lot of money to replace a 60 dollar Natural Keyboard and a 50 dollar trackball. NOT
Stop blaming and criticising others when you could fix the problem(s) yourself!
I believe in all of you- get with it.
Best to all.
Rock On.
Mike
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Hardwareless GUI- 42 dollars and bic pen- no compu
Dear Public,
As "milady" suggests, I should stop telling you about, and tell you what it is NOT:
No physical Keyboard, Mouse, or Monitor.
Just a Bic Ballpoint pen is all the user sees.
Imagine a empty room with a wood desk and chair, and this bic pen- that is all that is INSIDE the room to run XP.
Got it?
Good!
Mike (and li'l Miss)
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predictions
Hi,
if you try to predict the future you can't be so one-dimensional.
I believe that yes, speech or thought or something else more natural to human interactions will replace or supplement the keyboard. And it already happens, as others here point out.
The simplistic arguments against it remind me of stories they told about when the car or the computer or [name what] was first introduced. Technology changes society and vice versa.
Greetings, A.
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Re: Re: Did you read the quote before you wrote th
It seems obvious to me too! I think i've figure out a set of parameters that the application would work well for in the general consumer market, woe is me that I'm not a programmer...
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True prediction
"those will become a standard part of the interface."
Who said anything about replacing the keyboard. and from what i read in this qoute, we are already there.
Thanks Bill, What's next?
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True prediction
"those will become a standard part of the interface." Who said anything about replacing the keyboard. and from what i read in this qoute, we are already there. Thanks Bill, What's next?
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Carpel Tunnel Syndrome
Well you all can continue to type and get Carpel Tunnel Syndrome while my hands and wrist stay strong and healthy because I will be using speech recognition. By the way known of you have any right to complain about Microsoft software. If you don't like it there are plenty of other alternatives out there. Such as Apple, and Linux based OS. But don't sit there complaining about it if you continue to buy it.
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Re: Re: you idiot
what?
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Re: Bah
And why could you not call a macro by voice. expand your mind my friend.
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Again, imagine any thoughts in the form of codon
Remember that no words have certain meaning before they are defined by your intuition or by common rules. So, to make words meaningful in the way you expect, they can not be alone like the individual letters, number symbol on the keyboard, they must be in the form of defined way. It is kind of DEFINITION + WORD. I call them Codon, so on and so forth. By doing so, any keyboard will be able to TALK. So equivalently to say, you have a "talking keyborad" as a tool to express your thoughts without a necessary mechanical keyboard.....
Keep your imagination going...
or Visit my website for the idea called "Codonology":
www.Codonology.com
Have a good future!
Hua Fang, MD
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Did you say.........
The speech recognition programs will have to learn how to understand everyone's accents from all over the world. Right now they have a lot of problems.
www.orb24.com
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I've been hearing this as a tech teacher for years! My first response was, "The day I have to sit in a classroom with 32 kids speaking into microphones is the day I leave." But the state, which is in bed with MS, pushes it. I remember about 5 years ago when the President of our state association did the entire program using SR. It was so full of typos it was HILARIOUS! Yeah, Steve, I'm sold! We all got out our red pens and started correcting it.
Will SR replace keyboards? I'm sure that at some point it will. In ten years? I don't think so. It's still very buggy. Keyboards have a lot of benefits; I can type without advertising to anyone within earshot what I'm doing, I can multitask (watching TV and typing right now) without disturbing others, keyboards are MUCH more accurate (if you're an accurate typist), and some of us can type faster than we can dictate. I see SR in the next ten years as more of a quality add-on to a keyboard than a realistic replacement.
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I get no Spam with my Gmail Account
"spam will be gone within 2 years... which he made in 2004?"
Hey spam may not be gone on MSN, but since I've opened up my Gmail account I haven't received any spam in my inbox. Its all neatly piled underneath Spam where it belongs. So in away I guess Bill was right. You just have to have your email with the right people. GOOGLE ROCKS AND SHOULD RULE THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY!!
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Parsing it is the trick
Let's assume speech recognition is perfect - that the computer can understand every word spoken. There is still the problem of figuring out what the person means.
We want computers to understand speech, but the grail is understanding natural speech, not carefully worded commands. We are getting pretty good at recognition. Understanding natural speech is a different problem and is the real trick. That's the thing to get working on now.
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Re: Hardwareless GUI- 42 dollars and bic pen- no c
Just a Bic Ballpoint pen is all the user sees.
Imagine a empty room with a wood desk and chair, and this bic pen- that is all that is INSIDE the room to run XP.
So something like the Nokia Digital Pen SU-27W?
I think that first had it's debut in 2004. Again it experienced Also, many reviews on it didn't come until several years later.
Nokia has long had a facinating legacy of creating a good robust UI, employing features that seem to be well ahead of others. I've had GPS directions (by way of TomTom) on my nokia phones since my Nokia 6600 which came out it 2003.
So it's not surprising when I saw the SU-27W that something was up. I acquired a SU-27U for $50 almost a year ago.
It's an interesting device, but has limitations- for one, it requires specially indexed paper.
But the ability to acquire it for such a low price tells me two things:
1) High R&D costs built into the device caused a non-commitity device. Which led to
2) Adoption challenges partially due to it's high price.
3) The surplus was sold at intrensic value, not at cost.
Again, when discussing new Human Interaction Devices, it takes time and commoditization for it to reach critical mass, and needs a phase-in strategy. Somewhat related: consider acoption rates of with moving to SOA/BPM platforms.
Where is Masnick anyway?
/thread
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Re: Re: Hardwareless GUI- 42 dollars and bic pen-
* Correction SU-1B is what I acquired, SU-27W is a refresh of the product.
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Re: Re: Bill Gates deserves more thanks and less c
Ever though of just switching to Mac if you hate M$ so much?
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thought recognition technology will one day replace (for the most part) both the keyboard & mouse, and speech recognition technology.
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News Flash: Man incorrectly predicts future!
News Flash: Bread now sliced too!
Welp that about summarizes this entire story.
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LumenVOX for asterisk
Has anyone tried this voice recognition system for asterisk?
http://freepbx.org/news/2008-01-29/microsoft-response-point-pbx-asterisk-and-beyond
Says they have a $50 developer edition thru the end of Feburary. has anyone tried it?
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LumenVox Speech Starter Kit
Wrong link, here's the actual one-
http://store.digium.com/productview.php?product_code=8ASTLUMSTART
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