🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1444@trantor.harris-atd.com> chuck@trantor.harris-atd.com (Chuck Musciano) writes:
>>>Why does everybody want a speech recognition device for their Mac (or
>>>other computers)?
>>Because I can speak much faster than I can type.
>> [ more stuff using lots of single and double quotes and parenthesis ]
>     I wonder about this.  Try speaking the preceding paragraph with all
>the punctuation in place.

I did.  It took about 30 seconds.  I didn't pronounce the periods and
commas (assuming that a good speech recognition system would infer
them from pauses and inflection), but I did pronounce all the other
punctuation.  I also said "quote" and "end quote" for both kinds of
quotes, since a good voice-driven word processor would know the rules
about nesting quotations.  See my response to the other person who made
about the same comment.

I just made a comparison.  I spoke the last paragraph in about 36
seconds, without rushing.  I typed it as fast as I could in 1:44.  Try
it yourself.  Certainly a better typist could type much faster, but 3
times faster?  Also note that that paragraph is particularly bad for
voice entry.  Punctuation slows down voice entry much more than keyboard
entry.

>Also, you need some verbal
>escapes, since the word "insert" is a marker (in the above system) and you
>need to escape it back to its use as a normal word.

An alternative to this would be having a chord keyboard with just a few
keys for handling modes.  Holding down one of its keys would mean that
spoken words should be interpreted as commands; if the key is up, all
words should just be inserted.  Another key could be a literal key:
when held down, words like "semicolon" would be spelled out, rather
than inserting a ';'.

Another approach is to plan on the word processor being smart enough to
tell from context whether the word makes sense, or must be a command.

>     The horrors of multi-person offices are too numerous to mention.  Not
>to mention shouting "rm *" into a room crowded with voice recognition
>terminals.

The microphones could be insensitive ones (that don't pick up anything
more than a foot away, and clipped on your lapel, or one of those boom
arrangements that telephone operators use.  No problem.

>I like quiet when I work, not listening to my office abble to
>his machine (and vice versa).


Yeah, I agree with you here.  I tend to listen to quiet music when I
work.  It might be distracting if I had to listen to the 5 or 6 people
with nearby offices talking to their computers.  Maybe it wouldn't work
out.  But I'd sure like to try it.  I'm pretty sure it WOULD be faster.

-Peter Schachte
pds@quintus.uucp
..!sun!quintus!pds