Voicing a concern

2005-05-31

What a missed opportunity. I'm so disappointed I could scream... silently of course. What am I talking about - voice recognition.

Oh, that one, they say. You're into that, they say. True enough - but on and off, truth be told. When I wrote the portability article at The Reg a few months ago, I was struck by the revelation that voice rec was just waiting for the right form factor of computer. Now, examples of said form factor are starting to roll off the production lines, and very sexy they all look too, with one HUGE proviso - they mostly lack a microphone socket. Perhaps I could hope that connectivity such as Bluetooth, builds in the idea that wireless mikes are the way to go. However I'm assured by people in the know that the sound quality over Bluetgooth is insufficient for voice rec. Wired mikes are the way forward, in the short term at least, and only a minority of the devices support this. Notably the Antelope (available now) and the Tiqit (later this year). The latter's processor is a bit poor, but an older version of Dragon Dictate should work just fine*. As for the others - the Oqo, Vaio and Flipstart, just don't go there.

Ahm tellin' ya, voice rec's the way. The time savings possible from being able to dictate any time, any place etc, together with the improved QOL (quality of life, lummox) from not being slumped in front of a glowing screen, will more than make up for the still-dodgy battery life on these devices. It'll probably transform blogging as well - watch this space!

* Obtaining an older verison is not as easy as it sounds of course. Having purchased the latest version and finding it didn't work on my PictureBook PCG-C1X (now retired to the cupboard, incidentally), I resorted to eDonkey to download an older version. To this day I'm still not sure I did anything illegal.

This post was - doh! - typed.