We wanted more. And when we encountered the ISLE hardware and
software, the pieces just sort of fell in place."
He paused for a moment, picked up the small black box sitting on
the table before them. "In its final configuration, this
circuitry will fit on one single PC card, that slides into one of
the portable's available slots. It contains the core recognition
software, speech synthesizer, and 74,000 word English language
library. The card's extra RAM stores up to 5,000 additional words,
such as last names or companies or terms you commonly refer to.
Additional libraries, ones that are industry-specific, for
example, medical libraries, can be stored on another PC card, or
on the hard disk."
"Incredible," William said. "But really, do people want this sort
of interface? Will they really use it? In tests we conducted in
our labs, we found that while users often asked for speech
recognition, few actually used it once we installed it on
prototype systems. What makes this any different?"
Peter nodded in agreement. "You're right. It's true. While people
think they want to be able to talk to a computer, have it take
dictation, we believe what they really want is to give it simple
commands to make certain small tasks simpler. But listen, instead
of telling you all of this, why don't we show you instead. Guys?"
Paul and Rick arranged the hackneyed Joey Plus computer in front
of William and Peter handed him a microphone.
Pages:
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369