From: "John Curtis, Hort+Research CRI, Hamilton, NZ"
Subject: TECH: Relevance of Voice Input to VR
Date: 19 Mar 1993 08:45:16 +1200 (NZST)


Refering to the OS/2 product someone mentioned
>>Well, I don't know about Apple's Casper...
>>Journalists would dictate to the machine, enunciating each word clearly with 
>>distinct pauses

Casper is *apparently* capable of parsing whole phrases without the need to 
separate words with a pause.  I've seen bits on TV showing off Casper, and I 
realise these may have been fabricated to some degree, but the whole reason 
Casper is supposed to be such a breakthrough is that it works.

I've been using a Voice Navigator on my Macintosh for some time and it 
requires words to be separated.  In fact it doesn't do any parsing of 
individual words anyway, it pattern matches whole phrases or single words to a 
library of commands you've stored.

>>Erm, maybe I'm leaving the topic here, but...

I don't think so!  I reckon voice input is a create interface into a virtual 
world.  It is a method that most people use for interaction anyway and shows 
great potential in its current development.  Anyone who's used a dataglove or 
similar to navigate around a world for more than 5 minutes will have developed 
cramp in their hand by using the quaint "point your finger and cock your 
thumb" gesture.  You try holding your thumb like that for prolonged periods of 
time!  Wouldn't it be easier to say "go over there" or "let me know if 
something's behind me".  It removes the need for text based prompts which you 
can't succesfully do in current LCD based HMDs anyway.  Voice facilitates a 
modeless interface in that you don't have to go through a series of, perhaps, 
cryptic commands or gestures in order to achieve your goal.

That's my 2c worth - here's a real question for anyone who's read this far:

I'd like to hook up my Voice Navigator (which is SCSI based) to my IRIS 
Indigo.  Voice Nav uses a Sony chip that does all the work, so the software to 
drive it should be fairly simple.  I'm not sure how helpful Articulate Systems 
are going to be in disclosing their I/O, but has anyone else tried this?

Thanks, Johnny.

curtisj@ruakura.cri.nz