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Speaking Of Speech (5/4/99)
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Speaking of science fiction movies (chalk up another kick-ass segue for the AtAT team! Woo-hoo!), ever since Scotty tried to control an original Mac by speaking into its mouse in 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, voice interaction with Macs has been a Holy Grail for some of the more forward-thinking users out there. Apple's had PlainTalk software that allows the control of certain system functions ever since the AV Quadras and the first Power Macs, but dictation software has lagged severely on the Mac side of the fence compared to what's available for Windows. Rumors have been circulating for many, many moons now that Apple's about to change that.
According to Apple Insider, no one's entirely sure why Apple's efforts to build a next-generation speech technology hasn't yet borne fruit, but the latest rumor seems to be that Apple's not only working with mysterious outside parties, but also that they are considering an outright buyout of one of those companies-- possibly General Magic. Meanwhile, IBM is said to be porting their own "ViaVoice" dictation software to the Mac platform, driven by the iMac's sales success. There's no word on when it'll surface, but when it does, it'll be nice to have a natural-speech dictation solution that only costs about $50.
Personally, we're a little skeptical that voice dictation will ever really replace keyboard or stylus input. Specifically, we're thinking about offices full of cubicled employees, all speaking at once trying to get their work done. And what about entering notes while speaking to someone on the phone? That's not to say that more dictation software wouldn't be very welcome in the controlled environment of the AtAT studios, but as a companion to the keyboard, and not as its replacement. Besides, we've been so spoiled by the freedom of text editing capabilities, non-linear input is the order of the day; having to write by dictating a linear stream of sentences, well, it just sounds primitive as all get-out. ;-)
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SceneLink (1504)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/4/99 episode: May 4, 1999: Nothing says "I Love You, Mom" like a sparkling new iMac in her favorite flavor. Meanwhile, Apple finally turns some of the Star Wars spotlight on QuickTime 4's new streaming ability, and speech technologies on the Mac may get a double boost from Apple and IBM...
Other scenes from that episode: 1502: Maternal Payback Time (5/4/99) Are you the type of ungrateful offspring that perennially forgets Mother's Day? Shame on you! That poor, courageous woman raised you, fed you, cleaned up unspeakable messes for you, and you can't even remember to send her a card once a year?... 1503: May The 4rce Be With You (5/4/99) It's no secret that we think Apple's doing a pretty bang-up job of riding the Star Wars: Episode I coattails of hype. With over ten million downloads of the QuickTime-only trailer, including over a million downloads of the enhanced QuickTime 4 version, all of this swelling expectation and impatience for Episode I is really raising Apple's visibility on the Internet...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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