Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnx5c | Hacker News Reader

On a related note, does anyone have suggestions for an engineer who will have to use his hands less and less over time?

You might want to checkout Talon Voice.

I have used it in the past for hands free coding, there is a steep learning curve but once you get comfortable with it many things can be done faster by voice than with your hands.

Be aware, using your voice all day can be hard on the vocal cords.

- https://talonvoice.com/

Thanks, that looks interesting. I'll try it out.

Talon is great. I'm personally also using Serenade.

https://serenade.ai/

Thanks for the recommendation.

I'm looking at Talon at the moment but I'm disappointed that it has no clear way to opt out of user metrics and the first thing it does on launch is download blobs from the internet without explanation. It's not clear if it even can work offline at all. For a program that listens to everything you say that is a bit disconcerting (especially in the context of sensitive work projects). I'd like to just pay for something and never have it connect online, bar manual updates.

Talon doesn't need to be online at all. It also does not send audio or transcripts anywhere.. the telemetry can be disabled in settings, and it always prompts me to update on start but never automatically updates.

The blob it downloaded is probably the speech recognition model. I'd ask on the slack if you're concerned, aegis has worked really well with me.

> the telemetry can be disabled in settings

I searched and could not find it anywhere (v0.2.3).

how do you like serenade?

I'm creating a sort of serenade-like system in Talon, since I want it to be open-source and have tight integration with Talon. So I'm curious what the highs and lows of serenade have been for you.

I love Serenade. It has some rough edges at the moment, but the team is working hard on making it better.

What I love is that it feels so natural to use. It understands the context of the code, which means you don't have specify exactly where to move the cursor, or what kind of casing you want on variables. It automatically does what you want it to. I also love that everyone has the same set of base commands. It makes it easier easy to share information and help each other out. Oh, and the browser extension for Serenade is such a life saver. I'm mainly a front end web developer, and it's so easy to navigate the UI with that browser extension as I'm developing.

You can use MIDI hardware as input devices. That means you can use foot controllers with pedals and other controls that might be easier to manage than keyboards, mice and trackpads. There are also purpose-built input devices for those with repetitive stress injuries and what not. You use them to work with, or modify, voice controls.

Assuming by engineer you mean a software engineer who uses a computer all day.

Depends on which field of engineering you are in, but going more towards R&D usually involves less hand work and more brain work. Same for technical consulting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com