Speech to text recognition is still in its infancy. This can be seen by anyone who tries to use it to send text messages or emails using their mobile phone. It works better than smoke signals, but not by a huge margin.
Skylook brings Skype inside Microsoft Outlook®. (NOTE: If you don’t run Outlook, or if you only have Outlook Express, you can Record Skype Calls by downloading CallBurner instead).
Zemanta is the best thing to happen for Bloggers since the beginning of Web 2.0.
If you blog at all, especially using Blogger, you have to try Zemanta! It enables you to add related material to a blog post without having to open and search in a separate window.
The big deal about Zemanta's becoming native on Blogger is that now you have access to the service/tool regardless of what browser you are using. I love Safari's speed, and Chrome's extensions; Firefox runs and starts slower than these on my Mac, but I LOVE Zemanta, and until now it was the only Browser with a Zemanta add-on for Blogging. But with this new widget on my Blogger blog, I can use Zemanta with any browser.
Thank you team Zemanta for showing such love for bloggers.
"Handsfree assistant: Use your voice to Text, Email and more while you drive"
I just downloaded the Android app. It works as advertised. I was able to sent my wife a love note, set a reminder on my Google calendar, hear a weather forecast, and listen to my email while driving - hands free. Pretty damn cool!
My wife has an iPhone and an unlimited data plan. But we couldn't afford the same for me, so I have an Android phone with no data plan. So until now, it's been just a phone unless I connect to a wireless network. Not any more. With Dial2Do, and companion service, Voice2Note, I can join the party with just phone service. I can even do Web 2.0 by emailing blog posts via the service.
This is the dawning of the implicit promise of the AI: the ability to direct actions and message content by voice. In this case the actions are ones that occur to me almost every day after leaving work for home: I need to send such and such email message(s). If only I could do this with my "smart" phone. Well, now I can, with Voice2Note, by Dial2Do.
I just dial a local number, speak my notes, and they get automatically transcribed and added to Evernote. I can even tag the note by saying "tag as list," or whatever, at the end of the message. When I'm done, the robotic voice, a sort of sexy Irish female, says, "that's done." And it is!
Information technologies are not available only to an elite. As discussed, desirable information technologies rapidly become ubiquitous and almost free. It is only when they don’t work very well (that is, in an early stage of development) that they are expensive and restricted to an elite.
Early in the second decade of this century, the Web will provide full immersion visual-auditory virtual reality with images written directly to our retinas from our eyeglasses and lenses and very high-bandwidth wireless Internet access woven in our clothing. These capabilities will not be restricted just to the privileged. Just like cell phones, by the time they work well they will be everywhere. In the 2020s we will routinely have nanobots in our bloodstream keeping us healthy and augmenting our mental capabilities. By the time these work well they will be inexpensive and widely used.
As I discussed above, reducing the lag between early and late adoption of information technologies will itself accelerate from the current ten-year period to only a couple of years two decades from now. Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in our brains, it will at least double in capability each year, as is the nature of information technology. Thus it will not take long for the nonbiological portion of our intelligence to predominate. This will not be a luxury reserved for the rich, any more than search engines are today. And to the extent that there will be a debate about the desirability of such augmentation, it’s easy to predict who will win, since those with enhanced intelligence will be far better debaters.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Machine Design
