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Comment by tomasien | Hacker News Reader

Anyone want an unsolicited opinion? waits for everyone to leave

I hope Google Glass is an experiment, because voice reco isn't particularly important outside of when you're driving. When I get tired of texting and consider voice reco, 2 things hit me (and others, I've done solid research on this)

1. Voice reco would be slightly better now that I'm tired of texting, but not much. 2. It is nowhere near socially acceptable to be speaking to no one. That's why you only see old people using bluetooth - how is that not an unbeatable sign? You can't just be speaking to no one.

The next step in communication has to be either low input "aware" communcation (aka, the check-in) or communication that somehow otherwise reads your mind.

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(I agree with you, and want to be clear that I do not bring up this example with the goal of showing you are "wrong", but someone I know brought up the example of "while cooking, and your hands are messy", and it made me think that there were at least a few other non biking/driving examples where voice recognition would be valuable. Still, however, I agree with you.)

> someone I know brought up the example of "while cooking, and your hands are messy"

Voice control isn't there yet. You could have a card deck in your timeline that consisted of individual steps of a recipe, but you can't use your voice to advance to the next card; you have to swipe. Hopefully that will change.

I've found I can organize my thoughts better when I talk out loud; I have more than once wished I were wearing a Bluetooth headset, so it would be more socially acceptable for me to appear to be talking to myself.

Me too. I've drafted plenty of marketing documents speaking into Dragon Dictation on my phone, earphones in, walking down the street. I suspect it looks just like I'm on a phone call - nothing awkward for me about walking down the street on a phone call.

sitting at a table messing on a computer in your hand used to be socially unacceptable.

And speaking to a live person via cellphone, in many places and contexts, is still considered socially un-acceptable. And this hasn't changed all that much after a decade-plus of near-ubiquitous cell phone ownership.

So I can't see how replacing the phone-and-person with wearable-and-computer-agent is going to see social change along any further/faster.

Wasn't it just an extension of operating a typewriter?

IT IS.

It is not about the thing in itself. It is about: "F*ck you, my computer is more interesting that you attitude"

With a tablet or big phone you could integrate everything into a social context. You could search something socially for the entire group to benefit. Show pictures for the entire group. Whatever.

Or you could look like a social retard that uses the computer to isolate herself.

I sincerely hope you missed the word "about" in that sentence otherwise we're going to need a whole box of tissues.

I still find the same situations unacceptable.

Glass is cool as shit though. I think it's a step in learning what boundaries we can push. I might even wear it if I almost never needed to talk to it.

Voice reco isn't very important now, but it is important to the future of computing. It enables a lot of things in fields like wearable computing that aren't really doable right now, because the HID becomes a microphone instead of a keyboard or other input device, which is much easier to stuff into small awkward places.

Voice recognition is NOT the only thing that could do that, and when something else comes along that is better, THAT will really change things.

Reading through this post, I was put in mind of just the opposite: how so many computers in sci-fi movies use voice interaction. In particular, D.Curtis' point #3 -- looking at something near your face and/or looking at a dark background, maybe while driving -- brings this, dare I say, into focus.

As you note the problem with voice is social.

And I find that I am frequently alone - and there you don't have to worry about the taboo. I think that voice interfaces have a lot of potential in non-social settings. Personally I dictate much of my morning emails when out taking the dog on a walk.

I agree with the idea that talking to yourself is a social taboo. However, there are startups that are working to solve the data input problem (Thalmic Labs and the Myo being the one I'm most excited about). Combined with glass I think the future is bright.

Voice recognition is also useful when it's really cold out and you have gloves on, or when you can't/don't want to be looking at your phone (e.g. because you're navigating a crowded or dangerous place)

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