I think it is hubris to believe that technology cannot replicate the task of converting speech into text with appropriate punctuation and emphasis. Most of us can speak more quickly than we type and in highly resourced professions like healthcare, physicians prefer dictation wherever it is available. Make it more available and the preference will spread like wildfire. At which point much of the IT stuff that gets people all worked up today, will be like argument over which version of shorthand is the best. IMHO ;-)


True story - back in nineteen and eighty four (seems like yesterday) - when I worked at a computerland store, a company, Techmar (?) had a board (8080 16 bit) for voice recognition and synthesis. We hooked a couple up and "trained" them.

Most of the buyers used them for dictation. Some used them for lotus 1A input. In the rooms where they were testing them, one would hear:
"Slash"
"Menu"
"Range"
"A1 dot Z1"
"Copy"
"Right"
It was awkward - but people we're buying them!

But voice is slow. What is needed is some kind of head band that can read our "noddles" electro-magnetic signals.

Or maybe even a "Matrix" like jack-system! My fingers and vocal cords will never keep up with my noddle (maybe thats what we call a god-send!:).

Imagine - you're walking the dog - and writing code at the same time. Call me old fashion - I like GUI - but someday in the future, output (as well as input) will be jacked directly to the noodle!

I wonder what the pixel resolution of my optical cortex/region is?:)