FOSS against the Empire of Microsoft (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Martin
- Start date
A bigger battle or a bigger empire? Look, Microsoft is the biggest company, they can afford to enter any field. For instance, the whole XBOX thing isn't even mentioned, probably because that is more about hardware than software. But take Windows Media Center or however they call that bs against say mythtv, that's another one for you.
The fact of the matter is that a lot of these companies have no interest in taking Microsoft down. Windows is a product that "sells" hardware in booming numbers (because that's what most PC users think a computer is), so why should HP or Dell be upset about that?
The fact of the matter is that a lot of these companies have no interest in taking Microsoft down. Windows is a product that "sells" hardware in booming numbers (because that's what most PC users think a computer is), so why should HP or Dell be upset about that?
Now I thought of opening "The Microsoft Thread," but I don't think they even deserve that much, so I'll stick this here:
When good demos go (very, very) bad
July 28th, 2006, filed by Eric Auchard - Reuters
Eleven years after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book “The Road Ahead“ predicted humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type, the future appeared to be at hand.
At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday, Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, heartfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer.
The result was a disaster.
Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” Attempts to correct or undo or delete the error only deepened the mess.
It was not just a perfect refutation of the problems of making machines understand human speech. What other features of Microsoft Windows Vista pose trouble, the audience was left to wonder? “The crashing demo didn’t do a lot to instill confidence in the new Windows product,” one Wall Street analyst, who was present at the demo, said.
Windows Vista, already five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times. Delays have put off the consumer version of Windows until early 2007 — after the crucial holiday shopping season. Vista is scheduled to ship to corporate customers this November, that is, unless more problems are uncovered.
Later, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer blamed the failed speech recognition product demonstration on “a little bit of echo” in the room, which confused the speech-to-text system. To be sure, a second demonstration during the meeting showed how effectively speech recognition can be for navigating around applications, like Microsoft Outlook.
Structured menus appear to work fine. But recognizing random, natural speech still has quite a ways to go, by all appearances: “Let’s set so double the killer delete select all.”
When good demos go (very, very) bad
July 28th, 2006, filed by Eric Auchard - Reuters
Eleven years after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book “The Road Ahead“ predicted humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type, the future appeared to be at hand.
At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday, Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, heartfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer.
The result was a disaster.
Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” Attempts to correct or undo or delete the error only deepened the mess.
It was not just a perfect refutation of the problems of making machines understand human speech. What other features of Microsoft Windows Vista pose trouble, the audience was left to wonder? “The crashing demo didn’t do a lot to instill confidence in the new Windows product,” one Wall Street analyst, who was present at the demo, said.
Windows Vista, already five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times. Delays have put off the consumer version of Windows until early 2007 — after the crucial holiday shopping season. Vista is scheduled to ship to corporate customers this November, that is, unless more problems are uncovered.
Later, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer blamed the failed speech recognition product demonstration on “a little bit of echo” in the room, which confused the speech-to-text system. To be sure, a second demonstration during the meeting showed how effectively speech recognition can be for navigating around applications, like Microsoft Outlook.
Structured menus appear to work fine. But recognizing random, natural speech still has quite a ways to go, by all appearances: “Let’s set so double the killer delete select all.”
I always wondered about speech recognition myself. How does the system know when you're "talking text" and when you're "talking commands". Of course vi solved that problem quite elegantly decades ago with the 4 different modes. 
"Dear mom, please remember to save shut down the computer from the menu save instead of simply cutting power in the entire house like you customarily do save wonderful as the ext3 journal is one day it may just not save your files correctly and save corrupt the disk save print."
I mean, how would you make the distinction? Talk louder? Talk at a higher pitch? Take well defined breaks?
"Dear mom, please remember to save shut down the computer from the menu save instead of simply cutting power in the entire house like you customarily do save wonderful as the ext3 journal is one day it may just not save your files correctly and save corrupt the disk save print."
I mean, how would you make the distinction? Talk louder? Talk at a higher pitch? Take well defined breaks?
Majed said:
Now I thought of opening "The Microsoft Thread," but I don't think they even deserve that much, so I'll stick this here:
When good demos go (very, very) bad
July 28th, 2006, filed by Eric Auchard - Reuters
Eleven years after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book “The Road Ahead“ predicted humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type, the future appeared to be at hand.
At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday, Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, heartfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer.
The result was a disaster.
Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” Attempts to correct or undo or delete the error only deepened the mess.
It was not just a perfect refutation of the problems of making machines understand human speech. What other features of Microsoft Windows Vista pose trouble, the audience was left to wonder? “The crashing demo didn’t do a lot to instill confidence in the new Windows product,” one Wall Street analyst, who was present at the demo, said.
Windows Vista, already five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times. Delays have put off the consumer version of Windows until early 2007 — after the crucial holiday shopping season. Vista is scheduled to ship to corporate customers this November, that is, unless more problems are uncovered.
Later, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer blamed the failed speech recognition product demonstration on “a little bit of echo” in the room, which confused the speech-to-text system. To be sure, a second demonstration during the meeting showed how effectively speech recognition can be for navigating around applications, like Microsoft Outlook.
Structured menus appear to work fine. But recognizing random, natural speech still has quite a ways to go, by all appearances: “Let’s set so double the killer delete select all.”
When good demos go (very, very) bad
July 28th, 2006, filed by Eric Auchard - Reuters
Eleven years after Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book “The Road Ahead“ predicted humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type, the future appeared to be at hand.
At Microsoft’s annual Financial Analyst Meeting on Thursday, Vista product manager Shanen Boettcher set out to show just how easy to use the speech recognition technology built into upcoming Windows Vista software will be. Like, for example, dictating aloud a simple, heartfelt letter to mom, and having one’s voice automatically transcribed into a computer.
The result was a disaster.
Several tries at making the computer understand the simple salutation “Dear Mom” was read by Microsoft software as “Dear Aunt, let’s set so double the killer delete select all.” Attempts to correct or undo or delete the error only deepened the mess.
It was not just a perfect refutation of the problems of making machines understand human speech. What other features of Microsoft Windows Vista pose trouble, the audience was left to wonder? “The crashing demo didn’t do a lot to instill confidence in the new Windows product,” one Wall Street analyst, who was present at the demo, said.
Windows Vista, already five years in the making, has been postponed by Microsoft several times. Delays have put off the consumer version of Windows until early 2007 — after the crucial holiday shopping season. Vista is scheduled to ship to corporate customers this November, that is, unless more problems are uncovered.
Later, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer blamed the failed speech recognition product demonstration on “a little bit of echo” in the room, which confused the speech-to-text system. To be sure, a second demonstration during the meeting showed how effectively speech recognition can be for navigating around applications, like Microsoft Outlook.
Structured menus appear to work fine. But recognizing random, natural speech still has quite a ways to go, by all appearances: “Let’s set so double the killer delete select all.”
Oh and the world's (supposedly) brightest minds in Microsoft couldn't set up a working environment for speech recognition, how will we commoners?
Martin said:
I always wondered about speech recognition myself. How does the system know when you're "talking text" and when you're "talking commands". Of course vi solved that problem quite elegantly decades ago with the 4 different modes.
"Dear mom, please remember to save shut down the computer from the menu save instead of simply cutting power in the entire house like you customarily do save wonderful as the ext3 journal is one day it may just not save your files correctly and save corrupt the disk save print."
I mean, how would you make the distinction? Talk louder? Talk at a higher pitch? Take well defined breaks?
"Dear mom, please remember to save shut down the computer from the menu save instead of simply cutting power in the entire house like you customarily do save wonderful as the ext3 journal is one day it may just not save your files correctly and save corrupt the disk save print."
I mean, how would you make the distinction? Talk louder? Talk at a higher pitch? Take well defined breaks?
That said, OS X already has a voice recog. app. called Speech (yes, again Vista are acting like this is something new to OSes ). You can customize it yourself, but again, i think it's not yet practical for regular users.
To answer your question Martin, in Speech at least, you can set an initial keyword to start a command. A significant pause means that you stopped the command. In my setting, i have that command as "Bob."
Ex: Bob, close window.
....
I think the reason there _isn't_ any speech recognition in popular use is that it hasn't been worked out to be useful yet.
I don't get it.. why do you need Bob? Why can't you just say "close window"?
Majed said:
To answer your question Martin, in Speech at least, you can set an initial keyword to start a command. A significant pause means that you stopped the command. In my setting, i have that command as "Bob."
Ex: Bob, close window.....
Ex: Bob, close window.
....