I was mulling over how to respond to Rob's concept of a universal speech translator that will function all the way from Brooklyn to the Bronx to intergalactic communications. Gordon got me off the hook with some real data. Voice recognition has been on the boiler for nearly two decades that I know of, and has actually advanced considerably. The people I know who've tried both it and writing recognition tell me there is an iterative procedure that allows the machine to "learn." Gordon provides anecdotal evidence that there still are shortcomings in the process. My many years of native skepticism have shown me that with infinite memory, patience, and money, almost anything technical can be done by smart, highly motivated people. But they can't always be done cheaply, and voice recognition lies in this realm. With the cost of integrated circuits still generally obeying Moore's Law, who knows what will show up early in the next century!
Having worked for Bell Labs at a time when the citadel at Murray Hill, N J, had a license really just to putter around, I realize spots like that no longer exist. Quick return on investment is the rule, and the old Sarnoff RCA Labs and IBM's research facilities have gone the way of the dinosaur. DARPA used to fund some of it, but even that's been cut back now that America no longer has a real military foe. We'll have to look for a cosmic fear-factor to obtain non-immediate payback funding for pure research. The only guys who could withstand the expense of those kinds of programs are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and both of them know how to pinch a penny. It's fun to speculate that IDTI could work with IBM to develop voice recognition, but if Len Perham tried it, he would be hanged by his stockholders with his board holding the rope.
Rob's comment that the computer has actually become a communications tool was very perceptive. I compute almost nothing with this one, though it regularly calculates my stock losses each week, but do frequently communicate all over the globe with people and tap into data banks for newspapers and other current information. Since I can't really figure out a way to communicate face-to-face with my own wife, I have to be impressed with the capabilities of this inexpensive electronic machine and associated switching net. I was able to learn to type, if not converse. As Gordon said, "Let them learn cockney." |
