Voice Recognition? Not yet.

Microsoft Vista Speech Wreck

These Microsoft demonstrations are always a great piece of history to store and watch years later. Unfortunately, I recall speech recognition back in the mid-90's and it wasn't much different than it is today. I'm sure there have been many improvements along the way, but when it comes right down to it, the stuff just isn't very useful yet.

I remember the first time I ever installed ViaVoice from IBM back in 1995. I thought it would be so cool if I could just talk and it would type. I even ended up with a $3017 dollar Pentium 100 IBM Aptiva from Radio Shack (convinced my dad this was necesary) to use ViaVoice on. The first sentence I spoke ,the example sentence from the manual, came out telling me something about Peter Java speaking to its predecessor.

I am convinced the technology will improve, but this seems to be one of those things that we just can't get right yet. I think the handwriting recognition is getting a little better, but I wouldn't plan on relying on it for everyday use either. I will say that some of the tablet pc's look pretty sweet, but I can't see them for much practical use until some of the software gets better. Besides, what good does a 10 pound tablet do for a student with a 2 hour battery (3 hours if you don't touch the keyboard and run the screen in twilight mode)?