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| The graveyard of my failed relationships |
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I’ve been trying out some voice-activated computer software, so I’ll no longer have to tire my delicate little fingers by typing. My first attempt didn’t go well. ‘Hello,’ I said clearly into the mic, and the word ‘ambulance’ appeared on the screen. I tried again. ‘Wallow,’ appeared and then, after an almost imperceptible pause, ‘Ha.’
I called the software helpline at £100 a minute. “Wallow-ha, my computer doesn’t understand me. What do I do?” They told me it would learn. We would learn together. It just takes time, they said.
I gave it time. I gave it most of the afternoon. I tried repeating whatever words the computer came up with, and then repeated its rendition of that, and eventually – I thought – some great truth might be revealed. We worked our way from ‘wallow-ha’ to ‘alien neighbour’ and I switched the computer off.
Thank goodness there’s no such thing as voice-activated cars, eh? But the tide of progress is merciless and unstoppable. “Clearly an important contribution to extra safety on the road,” says BMW of its voice input software. Yes, clearly. Until the day I say “switch on the radio” and my car thinks I want to call an ambulance, or that my neighbours are from another planet, or that I’d like to accelerate hard on the wrong side of the road.
Better us talking to the cars than the cars talking to us. Why do all sat-navs have such dull and annoying voices? Can’t the manufacturers inject a bit of fun into them?
autonut | 12 Feb 07 - 12:01I agree that sat-navs have extremely dull voices. Perhaps if Charis were to offer her services and have her well modulated / sarcastic tones recorded for universal use among electronic software manufacturers we would all benefit from considerably more interesting verbal exchanges with our electronic devices. The big bonus for Charis would be that her PC’s and her BMW would instantly know what she was on about!
Mind you, she’d probably have to be censored.
AlfaMartini | 12 Feb 07 - 14:51Alien neighbour, eh? Your computer’s smarter than you think. Obviously it’s worked out that you live in Cambridgeshire.
Just a thought: have you tried “Ha y’owright me dook?”
Graham Whyte | 15 Feb 07 - 12:34I grew up in this country and so have no need for sat-nav. The time will come when people will arrive at B from A without knowing how they got there.
Graham Whyte | 15 Feb 07 - 12:38Are those your computers? It must be very exciting working at NASA.
Lotisha | 15 Feb 07 - 12:42Maybe autonut (earlier comment) isn’t aware that Tom-Tom satnavs offer you a choice of celebrities’ voices. My wife recently drove her refined and courteous 86-year old mother to Leicester using a Tom-Tom which featured Ozzie Osbourne’s voice, liberally sprinkled with the appropriate numbers of f-words. Trouble was, as my wife’s mother eased herself out of the car at journey’s end, she was heard to say “Where’s my f****** walking stick?”
idrivea156 | 16 Feb 07 - 13:57