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May 9, 2002
This has already been blogged
This has already been blogged on Slashdot, but it's worth repeating here: it's an article about how a researcher in Maryland says computers controlled by speech are not viable because talking to your computer interferes with your short term memory, thus making it harder for you to do your work. He says that visual interfaces, such as the ones we use now (but more cleverly engineered) are likely to remain dominant.
My opinion: speech-controlled computers will help us perform every-day frequent tasks (such as turning lights on and off, setting timers, etc), and may serve as an adjunct to visual interfaces, but will not entirely replace them. I think it would be convenient to be able to select some text conventionally, and then say to your computer "Print" or "Cut" and have it follow your command. Imagine trying to tell your computer (orally) to select a certain amount of non-contiguous text. Then imagine trying to be the software engineer designing that voice interface. Forget about it.
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posted by adm at 2:12 PM | #
