The Verbal Web

Technocrat

The Verbal Web

zogger

Tue Nov 25 20:21:00 -0800 2008

Computers.

manage

IBM is working on a parallel to the current WWW called the World Wide Telecom Web. This is an auditory web that is accessed through normal speech over existing telephone lines. "Voicesites" that are created and hyperlinked in series by verbal commands, once you place the first phonecall which gets you "online" and by using a T (elecom)-web browser. You'll be able to navigate like normal, run bookmarks, etc. The new technology is initially intended for the developing world where very cheap basic cellphones might be the only high tech available and affordable and usable for people. It is part of their "next five in five" predictions for emerging technologies that could make a difference for the next five years.

ed.z.: I like 4 out of their 5. The last one in their list, the ubiquitous big brother voice and camera ultra nagware system called the memory enhancer that follows you around everywhere and records everything you do and stores your..whatever...all of it I guess..and harangues you all the time I could pass on. Rather get yelled at by ye aulde lady *once* for forgetting the milk at the store than get berated at constantly all day long by little speakperphones all over o_0

Walking down the sidewalk -> "dude, you stepped in dogsign! wipe your shoes!"
Walking by the fine jewelry store -> "yo, zogger! Remember, only 192 days to valentines day/some birthday/ anniversary/ whatever We got nice expensive pretty things in here!"
Walking into captain colonel mickey Ds good fried eats ->" Hey, this place has too many ultrasaturated fats and salted tasty grease molecules! You'll do better across the street at the 'rabbit's hutch' tofu and greenery bar!" Nope..I don't like that one at-all...

The Verbal Web

The Baron

Wed Nov 26 07:11:34 -0800 2008
manage

Revive the old Gopher system, add a text-to-speech engine and you'd have a great resource for this type of implementation. I remember back in the good 'ol BBS days following link after gopher link just to explore and learn. Then this new fangled 'web' thingy took over with all it's [FLASH] tags and pop-ups and such... *sigh*

Gopher

archanoid

Wed Nov 26 09:06:03 -0800 2008
manage

It's still running... you can google for "gopher servers" and find some interesting sites still chugging along. IE won't help you but FF understands "gopher://" just fine.

The Verbal Web

itwerx

Wed Nov 26 11:49:34 -0800 2008
manage

The verbal web seems like a dead end to me. For one, sufficient capacity to handle voice is also sufficient to handle a narrow data pipe. Even more importantly, we're limited to processing aural content in series, (very inefficient!), whereas visual content is far more multi-dimensional.

The Verbal Web

Anthony Sorace

Wed Nov 26 12:48:44 -0800 2008
manage

this is an interesting - and contentious - point. visual content is more multi-dimensional, that's true, and that has lots of real-world impact, most particularly on scanning, summarizing, and searching. but don't write audio off: there's plenty of benefits there, too. your audio channel is more frequently "disposable" - that is, not central to the task at hand. think about the difference between listening to the radio and watching television: which is safe(ish) while driving? walking down the street isn't really all that different, just typically lower stakes (bumping into a parked car at 2 vs 35 mph). if the system in question can model conversations reasonably (which most can't/don't), there's also better cognitive resonance with things our brains are wired to do anyway, softening the learning curve.

personally, i think voice interfaces are a huge untapped potential (my longest term, most ambitious project focuses on this area), mainly because the basic technology (ASR, TTS) is much harder than the basic technology for video interfaces. the reality, of course, is that any input channel has characteristics that are a strength or a drawback depending on context.

The Verbal Web

N. Dan Smith

Wed Nov 26 12:55:38 -0800 2008
manage

Schneier recently posted something which speaks to number 5: The death of ephemeral conversations. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.