Some User Input-Output news and rants…
Thomas Menguy | October 1, 2006Good article at brighthand about input entry methods : The Writing in Your Hand.
I firmly think that voice is not a natural way to communicate with a computer, or write a message, and if you have already tried DragonDidacte/IBM Via Voice, you know how painful it is : the issue is not the recognition engine accuracy, but that you don’t write like you talk!, sounds obvious…You need to talk as if you were writting, not so easy, and not effortless. In France Orange has changed its voice mail machine to answer to voice commands like “callback”, “delete”,”next”,”previous”…and you know what? Technically it works like a charm, ergonimically it’s hum..crappy 
, you really felts like an idiot talking (giving orders) to your phone (ok ok, this one seems paradoxical). Talking is a human affair, and talking with a non sentient entity, (a pedantic name for a machine ) IS un-natural. It is why I agree with the last conclusion of the brighthand article: new entry methods have to be found!
Nothing related but here is a potentially very interesting new 3D display technology, seen at Engadget:
NTT DoCoMo unveils portable 3D display – Engadget
Mobile shopping may become much more attractive, and … and did you say games!
If you add movement detection for gesture commands … a “brave new world” of user interactions may be opened!
I do not share your view about speech reco... The
Pascal | October 2, 2006I do not share your view about speech reco… The problem is not the usefullness but the technology itself. I would be more than happy if a software could write down the audio notes I take (particularly for my press article :-p ) but the technology is simply not there to do that. Speech reco works only quite well with few and hard learned words, and with speaker-independent phrase (see here also things about it : http://pascal.darre.free.fr/blog/index.php/2006/09/29/what-about-interactivity-in-podcast/ )
But ok with new entry methods have to be found.
Hi, Thanks for the comment Pascal. For me the technology
tmenguy | October 2, 2006Hi, Thanks for the comment Pascal.
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For me the technology is partially here already: In the Medical Space surgeon are already using speech reco for recording their surgery operations. On the mobile phone when we say “speech reco” it is only for few commands and voice dialing, but many server side based services are already available to convert your voice to text message: It may be ok for short notes, etc … but you have to reformulate things afterward…And what is even less easy is given order and commands to your computer, Ican’t make my mind to do that cleanly