We are heading inexorably towards a voice activated world, one where voice recognition technologies will become the norm and pervade many aspects of our day-to-day lives. How far from the day are we when we look back incredulously at the use of keyboards and mice?
There have been a slew of announcements and innovations over the past few months;
- In early June 2011, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Microsoft unveiled a system that allows viewers to tell their television what they want to watch (essentially voice search with Bing on Xbox 360).
- On June 14th, Google started rolling out voice activated searches on desktops and laptops. Voice-activated searches were already available on mobile devices such as iPhone and Android-based devices. Chrome users visiting Google.com will start to see a little microphone icon on the right side of the search box and when they click on it will be asked to ‘speak now’. Google have apparently logged around 230 billion words to help the English voice search system recognize common phrases.
- Ford Motor Co’s SYNC feature is a hands-free voice-activated system that allows drivers to control their phones.
As anyone who has used voice recognition software, e.g. Dragon Naturally Speaking, will know it takes time to ‘get you know you’ and recognize your unique speech. I am sure many of us have suffered frustration with using automated helpdesk and cinema booking voice recognition systems which don’t recognise our responses.
Poetry reading is the antithesis of ‘high technology’ and yet it may offer a key route to avoiding digital exclusion. For those who don’t enunciate well, the spread of voice recognition technologies risks becoming a barrier to their active participation in society in the same way that a lack of access to technology or lack of digital literacy skills when technology is accessed are barriers.
Many schools and learners could reduce the risk of digital exclusion through practicing reciting poetry (which has the added bonus of improving general literacy).
The Pronunciation Poem (courtesy of The British Council) offers a good introduction.
- Ration never rhymes with nation,
- Say prefer, but preferable,
- Comfortable and vegetable.
- B must not be heard in doubt,
- Debt and dumb both leave it out.
- In the words psychology,
- Psychic, and psychiatry,
- You must never sound the p.
- Psychiatrist you call the man
- Who cures the complex, if he can.
- In architect, ch is k. In arch it is the other way.
- Please remember to say iron
- So that it'll rhyme with lion.
- Advertisers advertise,
- Advertisements will put you wise.
- Time when work is done is leisure,
- Fill it up with useful pleasure.
- Accidental, accident,
- Sound the g in ignorant.
- Relative, but relation,
- Then say creature, but creation.
- Say the a in gas quite short,
- Bought remember rhymes with thwart,
- Drought must always rhyme with bout,
- In daughter leave the gh out.
- Wear a boot upon your foot.
- Root can never rhyme with soot.
- In muscle, sc is s,
- In muscular, it's sk, yes!
- Choir must always rhyme with wire,
- That again will rhyme with liar.
- Then remember it's address.
- With an accent like possess.
- G in sign must silent be,
- In signature, pronounce the g.
- Please remember, say towards
- Just as if it rhymed with boards.
- Weight's like wait, but not like height.
- Which should always rhyme with might.
- Sew is just the same as so,
- Tie a ribbon in a bow.
- When You meet the queen you bow,
- Which again must rhyme with how.
- In perfect English make a start.
- Learn this little rhyme by heart.