A voice command device (VCD) is a device controlled by means of the human voice. By removing the need to use buttons, dials and switches, consumers can easily operate appliances with their hands full or while doing other tasks. Some of the first examples of VCDs can be found in home appliances with washing machines that allow consumers to operate washing controls through vocal commands and mobile phones with voice-activated dialing.
Newer VCDs are speaker-independent, so they can respond to multiple voices, regardless of accent or dialectal influences. They are also capable of responding to several commands at once, separating vocal messages, and providing appropriate feedback, accurately imitating a natural conversation. They can understand around 50 different commands and retain up to 2 minutes of vocal messages. VCDs can be found in computer operating systems, commercial software for computers, mobile phones, cars, call centers, and internet search engines such as Google.
In 2007, a CNN business article reported that voice command was over a billion dollar industry and that companies like Google and Apple were trying to create voice recognition features. It has been five years since the article was published, and since then the world has witnessed a variety of voice command devices. In addition, Google created a voice recognition engine called Pico TTS and Apple has released Siri. Voice command devices are becoming more widely available, and innovative ways for using the human voice are always being created. For example, Business Week suggests that the future remote controller is going to be the human voice. Currently Xbox Live allows such features and Jobs hinted at such a feature on the new Apple TV.
Read more about Voice Command Device: Voice Command Software Products, Voice Command Mobile Devices, Voice Recognition in Cars
Famous quotes containing the words voice, command and/or device:
“For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
“How did you get in the Navy? How did you get on our side? Ah, you ignorant, arrogant, ambitious—keeping sixty two men in prison cause you got a palm tree for the work they did. I don’t know which I hate worse, you or that malignant growth that stands outside your door. How did you ever get command of a ship? I realize in wartime they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. But where’d they ever scrape you up?”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“UG [universal grammar] may be regarded as a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty. One may think of this faculty as a ‘language acquisition device,’ an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)