An idea

Wasn't it Windows 3.1 where voice commands were available? I know it was by the early 1990's, and may have been before that. Then there were those commercials for the feature.

I had to chuckle. I remember coming up with this great idea to use the car engine to charge the battery. My dad almost wet himself laughing before finally taking me out to the family car and showing me the alternator. Oh well.

I don't know when that capability was dropped from the settings, but I can't find it on 2000. Maybe on the CD?

Because of the fallibility of the human memory, important procedures could easily be forgotten. I would much prefer to have the system set up for regular back-up, with a visual and audio announcement: "Scheduled back-up now starting. Expected time, 2 hours 23 minutes (or whatever)."

Or if you go for the voice recognition, how about a suble warning if you forget to issue a command at the appropriate time. Following Microsoft's lead it could be something like: an ear-splitting "Ding!" with the message: "You have failed to remember a scheduled operation. You will be shot at dawn."

Dragon's Naturally speaking can do this already.

From their site:
Perform complex tasks on your computer instantly with a spoken word or phrase. Create your own specialized commands-from simple dictation shortcuts to scripting commands that can automate virtually any process.

I personally don't use it.

But this would not be good for tasks that should be automated anyways, like backups.

But I guess it would be cool to sit at your pc and instead of clicking on a icon, to just say the programs name and it would launch.

I actually automated my house extensively at one point, including voice commands. As long as you kept it simple it worked. By the time the voice activated television remotes were on the market, I had already decided that I enjoy typing, pressing buttons and being generally silent as I go about my business. I find it easier to point and click while someone is on the phone with me, and kind of silly to be alone in my office saying "Computer:Check Mail" etc.

Sounds good on Dexters Lab, Silent Running, 2001 and of course when Kirk speaks..... but I didn't like it in real life.

The new cell phone feature with the photo transmission is interesting to... now to find the old RS modified rf scanner and the source code for the protocol and proggy, eh?

:)

I downloaded a program awhile back that used voice commands to automate tasks on my pc. It was okay, but it got a little annoying. Something about how I talk, and I went through the training, is hard for the computer to understand. It's really unnerving to say something to your computer, and have it say "I don't understand." The programs come with a training program that you are supposed to read out loud so the computer will understand you, but that's kinda funny too. The one I downloaded had you read stories to your computer to train it. That was about 2 years ago, so maybe the program has improved. I don't remember the name of it, but it was freeware.

Seems like a lot of work to avoid clicking on a shportcut called full backup or automated backups are even better.

Since my company develops its own business operations database system and its totally unique for our industry..being that I'm on the support end of our employees I had some suggestions for voice use with this new system...

1) User action: Incorrectly types in a non-existent vendor or facility location ID.

Current system: Will display a text box "Invalid Location ID"

Several years ago we loaded Dragon Dictate onto a PC for a manager who had major elbow problems that made typing very difficult. The biggest problem was that he could not hold a conversation in his office as the software had a large list of words that triggered actions and many were used in normal conversation. Like he would say I will do that report tomorrow and a report on what was on the screen would start printing, etc.

His problem always put me in mind of some of those science fiction stories where the voice activated computer responded to everything. thus if two kids started yelling at each other the system went burko carrying out the commands.

In the mid 1980's I visited an office where they did a lot of development and research work on software, the programmers had all sorts of weird things programmed into their computers. One was that hitting any key, except the designated safe key, whilst the system was in 'saver' mode resulted in an agry voice telling you to f*** off as you ahd stuffed the computer, followed by a loud bang and the screen looking like it just blew up and was on fire. I liked it, stopped visitors from playing with things.

Sound activation has been around for a long time. In the 1970's there used to be a sound activated switch you could get for your lights, clap your hands and the switch changed states; first clap lights on, another clap lights off. One fellow I knoe thought it was great and had them put throughout the entertaining area of his house, Had a formal dinner party with lots of VIPs, someone said something and a VIP respond with a sarcastic comment and started a slow clap, the lights went on and off like crazy which started everybody clapping in appreciation of the reaction, was a very psychadelic evening. next visit they had been removed.

I can speak louder, and that helps the program understand me. I just don't see the point in it. I might get a higher sensitivity microphone, someday when it is important to me.

I do appreciate the suggestions though.

As far as I have understood the already existing voice command systems, you have to train the puter in understanding you. Everybody has his/her own way to articulate and the puter should hear and understand you just in your daily/natural way of speech.
This probably can only be done in a sanitary environment (where no other sounds are present, so: everybody else please shut up; turn that radio down; who is yelling in the corridor?; can you kill that dog?!).
I use the puter at any time of the day, evening or night, depending on the workload or my digital appetite.
I know that my speech deteriorates depending on the time of the day/night and proportionally to my consumption of tea, coffee, milk or whisky. Does/would a voice controlled puter be able to still understand me when it is getting late?

Keep in mind that the voice systems on cell phones have been added as a work around for the limited keyboards and deep menus used on the phones.

While in a group setting (the bridge on Star Trek comes to mind) vocal interaction with the computer is a good method, I don't need more reasons for people to give me strange looks.

Think about this, in a typical office with cubicles, do you want to be forced to listen in as 5 or 6 people around you curse at their computers for not doing what they thought they told them to do?

I will continue to compute in silence.

Chas

Instead of having a simple voice command system for 'common' actions, why not have a full feature Artificial Intelligence (AI) that does all of those things automatically, without having to fool around with settings and the like.

The AI would monitor how you do things and would adapt the 'common' actions like backups so that they are done in a reasonable manner. For example, if you have just been playing high powered games on your computer, the AI will wait in the background doing as little as possible while you play.

But if you are working on business related things, the AI will do what is necessary to keep your work backed up. Better still, the AI would use it's knowledge of your habits to keep you from making stupid mistakes like NOT saving a document or saving a copied document over its original.

Think of the AI as being the bridge between you and the 'perfect' computer user. It does all of the grunt work that really needs to be done as well as handling the mistakes people make on a periodic basis.

Better still, the AI could even work up meta-macros that would cross application boundaries. Imagine telling the AI to monitor for a particular incoming email and create different web based documents based upon the response IF the response is understandable enough.

The possibilities are endless.