Speech to take off as a search interface? No way…
February 22, 2008
Bill Gates is predicting that we’ll interact with computers via speech and touchscreens more in the future.
In five years, Microsoft expects more Internet searches to be done through speech than through typing on a keyboard, Gates told about 1,200 students and faculty members Thursday at Carnegie Mellon University.
I just can’t see this happening without a major redesign of work areas. Far too many people are in shared offices where constant speech is a distraction. Also, think of how we search for data now - we find data, look at it, decide this isn’t what we needed, and search again, perhaps for only a slight variation of what we originally searched for. Now imagine *hearing* your co-worker do this. Constantly. All day long.
Imagine being in a library and wanting or needing to search for an unpopular topic. Now imagine doing it with speech
Keyboards and mice aren’t 100% perfect, but they are *quiet*, and don’t distract others around you nearly as much as someone talking. Keyboards and mice also offer a level of privacy that speech just never will.
Now, if Gates was predicting *thought* interaction - just think about stuff and the computer would help you search for it - I’d agree 100% that it’s good and we should be striving towards that. But speech? I’m perhaps just a stick in the mud, but I don’t see it taking off, except for niche vertical markets (customer service kiosks, perhaps, or medical systems for disabled individuals).
What do you think? Am I missing some killer use cases?
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February 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I dunno, a lot of people love 800-GOOG-411: http://www.google.com/goog411/
February 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
See, I’d count that as a niche. Maybe it’ll be a large niche, but it still feels very constrained. There’s certain types of information I can use that service to get information to. Even then, I don’t necessarily want to use it to find a specific restaurant in a crowded room, because I simply don’t want to broadcast where I’m heading out that evening.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Gates’s prediction about speech taking off is probably more about Microsoft’s Sync product which offers voice recognition in some Ford vehicles. He’s trying to build hype and drive share prices up—demonstrating that they’re ahead of the game. Bill has never really been a great prognosticator. He is a great businessman though.
That said, voice has great potential as a human-computer interface. Perhaps not in the work place, but in mobile devices where there isn’t room for a full QWERTY. The tiny keyboards and screens on mobile phones could benefit greatly from a voice interface.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Agreed on non-desktop devices. And maybe desktop devices will become the “niche” as mobile devices become the dominant computing devices???
Also agreed on Gates - how many of his predictions have really come true?
February 23rd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Yeah, but isn’t that in a constant state of decline? I know I’d work from home almost all the time if I could. I spend more and more of my time on the phone or in WebEx or NetMeeting conferences, and I can just as easily do that in my PJs in my easy chair at home as in my tie (uh, and other normal office-wear) at work.
I still see what you mean though:
As we get
dumberless consistent in our spelling, tweaking the search criteria is likely to be more convenient via the keyboard. Unless the search terms are context-aware, perhaps based on what you were doing just prior to starting your oral search, and speech (and spelling!) recognition can happen quicker than I can type, it won’t be of much use to me.