Challo - Speaking of RB, here's another interesting post (thanks, whitephosphorus) relevant to GMGC and speech recognition development:
"Lernahooligan alert -- pulling out all stops: That,it turns out, is what Lernout & Hauspie (LHSP:Nasdaq - news) was doing Monday when it dug (once again!) into its bag-o-tricks to juice its stock. I had pointed out the stock was up on "no news" because, quite frankly, I hadn't thought that the latest in a string of press releases justified the rise. But based on my email, not only was it responsible for the rise, but it was yet another reason why I'm an idiot. (Duh, we already knew that!)
Seriously, folks, I didn't take the press release seriously
because it was yacking about a "prototype" for a Palm
Pilot-like device that recognizes voice. (Lernout makes
voice-recognition software.) Prototypes come a dime a
dozen in Silicon Valley, where they're unaffectionately
known as "vaporware" until they are actually rolled out
for sale. So many prototypes simply never make it to
market, and when they do, they're often produced much
later than originally expected. Lernout expects its
product to be rolled out "sometime" by the end of this
year.
However, Lernout has more than once shown up at
investment conferences armed with demonstrations of
its software, only to have the demo flop. (I've only heard
the stories from on-the-scene sources, not seen them.)
So, armed with the new prototype of its palm device,
Lernout went on CNNfn Monday night to showcase the
product.
Turns out it was a fake demonstration.
According to the transcript, the Lernout device displayed
this message: "Can you meet us for lunch ... on
Thursday? We'll only be an hour. Whatever happened to
the two-martini lunch? Got to run, Allan."
The reporter was then prompted by the Lernout exec to
reply to the message. She said, "OK, why don't we say,
'No, I can't make it Thursday, but what about next
Monday?'"
To which the device responded: "What are my stocks
doing here?"
Huh? That has nothing to do with lunch. What
happened? According to a Lernout spokesman, "It's a
prototype, not a real product."
My point, precisely." |
