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Apparently we invented transparent aluminum before voice recognition
Intuitive and easy to use, Windows Vista even lets users browse the web using their voice

Voice recognition has gone through serious growing pains over the last decade, and has made it far enough that it has now become a useful tool for everyday computer use. Microsoft is showing a demonstration of the voice recognition capabilities that have been integrated into Windows Vista -- its next generation operating system.

In the demo, voice recognition is put through its usual paces, such as dictating a document in Word, or navigating the OS. But the demo clearly indicates how intuitive the technology has become. In the video demo, Microsoft demonstrates that its technology is able to intuitively recognize what's on the screen and apply voice commands and instructions appropriately. Most importantly, the demonstration takes voice recognition on a test drive through the Web, doing searches and navigating web pages with ease.

If the demo is an indication of what's possible now with voice recognition, we could finally be seeing daily practical uses for the technology. Home theater PCs can definitely take advantage of voice recognition technology, allowing users to sit at the sofa, and navigate their media centers without ever having to use an interface device such as a keyboard or mouse.

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Nope
By mindless1 on 3/1/2006 3:54:08 AM , Rating: 2
"Home theater PCs can definitely take advantage of voice recognition technology"

I can see it now, I hear screaming and go over to my neighbor's house to see them sitting on the couch, watching a movie on their HTPC (which of course means it's playing fairly loud SOUND), and they're screaming at the top of their lungs at windows "STOP, PLEASE STOP STOP STOP!!". Nope, Bill can't hear your screams.




RE: Nope
By Cunthor01 on 3/1/2006 4:27:41 AM , Rating: 5
I dont know why anyone would complain... It comes free with the OS. And it is integrated in the OS. Im sure lots of people will find this very helpful.


Yeah.
By Griswold on 3/1/2006 6:39:57 AM , Rating: 4
See, if something like this comes with OSX, its praised as the messiah. People will fall on their knees and thank God for it. People will pay whatever price to get an update with such a feature and people wont cease to point out how far ahead OSX is, compared to windows.

If something like this comes with something as dull as a new windows version, its the total opposite: people will bitch and moan, yawn and curse, trying to convince themselves and everyone else how useless, old and outdated it is, no matter how well it was implemented.

Such is live.


RE: Yeah.
By Ocaid on 3/1/2006 7:07:21 AM , Rating: 1
Uh, speech recognition has been built into OSX since its inception, I believe.


RE: Yeah.
By Griswold on 3/1/2006 7:30:24 AM , Rating: 2
Thank you for making my point. Thank you so much.



RE: Yeah.
By Ocaid on 3/1/2006 7:37:55 AM , Rating: 2
Your welcome.


RE: Yeah.
By hiscross on 3/1/2006 9:52:57 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, it has been is system 7 - 1993. I used it to show people how easy it was to use and how it could applied. It has been part of OSX day one. All I have to say to my mac is dailytech and it launched Safari and hit dailytech url.


RE: Yeah.
By Griswold on 3/1/2006 12:40:21 PM , Rating: 2
And I also have to thank you for making my point. Maybe you need to learn to read before you post, would help your ability to argue.

Hint: Nothing you posted was related to what I posted as it doesnt f'in matter which OS had it first. It was all about people such as you, crawling around telling others "but XXX had it since ZZZ and it worked great, so this vista stuff sucks blablabla" - with that I answered the original question, as to why people bitch and moan about a free feature that seems to work excellent.


RE: Yeah.
By clubok on 3/1/2006 8:59:47 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Maybe you need to learn to read before you post, would help your ability to argue.


Uh, you might want to read before you post. Hiscross wasn't actually arguing against you. He was correcting a point made by Ocaid, and indulging in a bit of reminiscing.

Personally, I can see both sides of the argument. It is true that Microsoft seems to have a pattern of chasing after the innovation of others, building substandard versions of features into their OS only after those features have been proven to be popular by their competitors. Some will criticize Microsoft for coming late to the game, others will criticize them for crowding out the competition by including the feature in Windows. Still others will applaud Microsoft for finally seeing the light, and bringing the feature to the masses who didn't yet know that it existed. I will happily sit astride the fence and acknowledge that Microsoft deserves criticism on the two counts, and praise on the third.

And before you jump on the tangent, no I do not know for a fact that Vista's voice recognition is substandard. It seems likely, though, given the pattern I described.


RE: Yeah.
By Ocaid on 3/1/2006 10:57:43 PM , Rating: 2
You know, I misunderstood the gist of your post until you replied and I went back and reread your original post. Maybe you need to learn to be a little more concise when making your point, rather than making snide remarks about somebody's reading comprehension.

I rarely use the Speech Recognition in OS X as it is not useful to me. I hope it works well in Vista, as it will help those who really do need that feature.


RE: Yeah.
By Zoomer on 3/1/2006 8:32:21 AM , Rating: 2
That's because most OSX purchasers don't have a clue.


RE: Yeah.
By Snuffalufagus on 3/1/2006 1:27:01 PM , Rating: 2
That's great if they've had it since day one. They spent lots of time on this wonderful feature but can't build decent networking and make it stable to save their lives.


RE: Nope
By smaddox on 3/1/2006 4:37:03 PM , Rating: 2
Howabout you just add the inverse of the output sound to the input sound, and pass THAT through the voice recognition.

It's actually quite simple. Just like noise cancelling headphones.


RE: Nope
By mindless1 on 3/1/2006 7:10:16 PM , Rating: 2
The concept is simple. DOING IT, well you go right ahead and let us know when it's tweaked to perfection for the typical users out there.

Problem is, this is even more overhead. Nothing is free, the codebase and processing power to do HD itself is going to be an issue on the run of the mill intel-integrated video based systems that sell the most.

Or tack on more hardware, more cost, and more complexity. It's actually not quite simple at all as we didn't even have the full-fledged voice recognition WITHOUT that yet. Sure, there have been noble attempts, but nothing ready for prime-time yet.


huh?
By fanbanlo on 3/1/2006 2:40:39 AM , Rating: 2
is this slow or what?

What has improved? I seem to be able to do all those back in the Win95 days.




RE: huh?
By msva124 on 3/1/06, Rating: 0
RE: huh?
By aGreenAgent on 3/1/2006 2:58:38 AM , Rating: 2
Probably accuracy. I remember using voice software that would seem to work for a bit, then suddenly destroy a sentence with terribly incoherent words. I'd spend more time deleting what it typed than actually dictating.


RE: huh?
By fanbanlo on 3/1/2006 3:09:51 AM , Rating: 2
I think it will be more or less the same. The speaker took 2 tries to open "Word 12" successfully.

so slow.... maybe 'cause of the screen capturing thread running on the same machine?


RE: huh?
By mircea on 3/1/2006 5:18:24 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe that was because he used the comand "Open" the first time and got no action. Then he just named the program and it opened.


Interesting
By Cogman on 3/1/2006 7:12:38 AM , Rating: 2
It sure does beat BUYING voice reconization. But, I just cant see it working well with a HTPC. Voice reconization itself is kindof unconfortable, expecially with people around. You sound like an idiot saying "Goto http://www.anandtech.com" or "Open File wordpad.exe". I feal uncomfortable saying the names of hamburgers in some restrants because you feal stupid saying "I want a happy flappy burger" True, a "real" geak will have no problem with this, but it just does not seam like it will ever get used much.

on the HTPC side, I cant see it working very well, the microphone can hear the Movie as well as the user. Imagine the movie saying "Stop that" or "Go" or any other command, or even just getting confused for saying a command. Voice Reconization Technology has a tendancy to seam like it is looking for the commands that the user is saying.

Just my 2 bits.




RE: Interesting
By Micah on 3/1/2006 9:04:48 AM , Rating: 2
He's right about the "I feel stupid" factor. I tried voice recognition (DragonSpeak or something like that) once and I hated it. I always felt like a moron sitting there talking to the computer. Plus, it required an even monotone voice:

Dear...Dad...comma...how...was...your...day...question-mark

It got tiresome really fast. I could go much faster with the keyboard.


RE: Interesting
By Xenoterranos on 3/1/2006 9:44:43 AM , Rating: 2
It's easier if you talk into the mouse.


RE: Interesting
By mindless1 on 3/1/2006 7:20:51 PM , Rating: 2
What makes you think it beats buying it?

Quite a few things built into windows are bettered by 3rd party commercial alternatives. What if it doesn't prove all that useful or reliable? Then you have more bloat and overhead in the OS. Sure they'll claim it can be turned off... Funny how even if you turn off all the extra features in XP, it's still not anywhere near as small as 2K.

I'm not completely against the feature though, but with MS it always feels like they're asking "where do you want to go today" as a way to just distract you while they take you where THEY want you to go today.


By NotFlatusTDM on 3/1/2006 9:26:04 AM , Rating: 2
These kind of features will make Vista a cpu hog. If you are upgrading, keep this in mind.




By Xenoterranos on 3/1/2006 9:47:50 AM , Rating: 2
For the longest time, it's been gaming that's been driving the hardware market. Faster CPU's and GPU's were needed primarily for gaming, and maybe a decent percentage for media editing (content/web/editing). The fact that there are some arguably usefull features comming that will help to drive the hardware market all the further can only be a good thing.


By IsDanReally on 3/1/2006 11:44:33 AM , Rating: 2
Keep in mind also, that most of these resource hog features can be turned off. You can still configure Vista to look very similar to Windows 2000 and disable extra features, just like you can in XP.

I'll agree though, that using all the features will be resource intensive, and that voice recognition is of questionable value to most people.


Great Pic
By Xenoterranos on 3/1/2006 9:42:51 AM , Rating: 2
First time I saw that movie, i thought the same damned thing...wow.




RE: Great Pic
By JBird7986 on 3/1/2006 10:33:40 AM , Rating: 3
Agreed.

"A keyboard...how quaint." -Scotty


Get with it
By maverick502 on 3/1/2006 8:14:41 AM , Rating: 2
I love the begininngs of new technology. People always seem to find things wrong with it. Voice recognition is going to be the next wave for computers. We'll never get rid of the keyboard, at least it will be there in some sense. What's nicer than using a mouse to select items - an intuitive voice recoginition software that will not give you carpel tunnel like my freaking mouse.




I think this is pretty cool
By sevendust62 on 3/1/2006 11:56:06 AM , Rating: 2
Personally, I think this is pretty cool.

Of course, for a while most people will probably use their keyboards quite a bit. That's inevitable, because one, we're used to it, and two, the voice recognition won't be perfect at first, until lots of users try it out and tell Microsoft what needs fixing.

But I think this would be a boon for disabled people who either have trouble using their hands (or can't use them at all), but who still can speak normally.

And eventually, it will surely improve to the point that it is used as least as much as the keyboard and mouse.

And the demo did look pretty good. The guy said he hadn't read the tutorial or trained with it at all, and yet he still was pretty efficient using it. Imagine if he had actually read the list of commands (which would have prevented the mistake of saying "open Word 12" instead of simply "word 12").

Don't be so rough. It comes with the OS, so it you already are going to buy Vista, it's basically free. If you don't like it, don't use it.




Great picture....
By Fenixgoon on 3/1/2006 1:38:43 PM , Rating: 2
Star Trek 4 FTW! oh scotty, put down that mouse already :P




I don't wanna talk.
By pepsimax2k on 3/1/2006 4:08:38 PM , Rating: 2
I don't wanna talk to my pc. I don't wanna talk to my tv either. If I wanted to talk I'd go out and get a life, not stay indoors and watch TV and play video games. Go away, voice recognition, I don't wanna talk to you.




By lemonadesoda on 3/4/2006 7:52:45 AM , Rating: 2
First published here, and I will offer DailyTech 10% of collected royalties for publishing and archiving my initial copyright statement (patents pending).

The advertising concepts are as follows:

1./ Short radio or TV advertisement with the words "Turn to channel X" (where X is a specific channel number). I hereby copyright this concept as "Command Advertising"

2./ This ad is then has booked airplay at the appropriate programming times on any channel which is not channel X. I hereby copyright this concept as "Method of distrubuting command advertising"

3./ The Media PC, tuned in to any channel other than Channel X, will voice-recognise the command "Turn to Channel X" and will action the request. I hereby copyright this concept as "Unsolicited Voice Gesture"

4./ The consumer, watching a channel other than X, therefore gets pwned to channel X

5./ If channel X is a pay-per-view, then I hereby copyright this concept as "Command collect".

6./ A variation of the above concepts is "Solicited Voice Gesture", where the consumer has accepted certain keywords, or speficied times and dates, to allow for this automatic channel changing. For example, "Sports on channel X", "Football at 5pm on channel X", "Now playing Star Wars on channel X". I hereby copyright this concept as "Solicited Voice Gesture"

7./ A variation of the above concepts does not use the voice but some other form of data transmission that can be filtered and used to action "Solicited Commands". I hereby copyright this concept as "Generic Solicited Transmitted Commands"


Companies wishing to my license these concepts may contact me directly.

Thank you.







"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer









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