An interesting thought--at least to me

I bought myself a new laptop. Unlike my other computers, it has an integrated camera and microphone. While messing with it, I found the voice recognition software on it and thought, "Well, it's got this integrated microphone, maybe I'll try this." I spent the next couple hours going through the provided training which taught me how to use the software. I also spent some time training the computer to recognize my voice. This basically consisted of me reading phrases the computer prompted me with. Some I had to say a few times before the computer would recognize what I was saying. Others it got right away. When I finished with the training, the computer asked me if I would allow it to go through documents I had already produced as well as future documents I would produce so that it could train itself on how I write and thus be able to better "guess" what I am saying when it can't understand me completely. I thought, "Oh. That's a great idea." Unfortunately, it's a new laptop and doesn't have any of my documents on it (I'll fix that in a few minutes).

Excited to try the new capability, I opened up Word and dictated, "This is the first time I've dictated to a computer." The computer typed, "And this is the first time I take into my computer." Not bad, eh?

This morning on the way to work I was listening to David McConkie's conference talk. He said something that I had heard when he first gave the talk, but after hours of training my computer to recognize my voice and finally giving it permission to study things I had already written, it had a lot more meaning to me. He said, "Studying the scriptures trains us to hear the Lord's voice." I wonder how often the Lord says, "Just read the scriptures," and I hear, "Just leave the pressures."...

Comments

Elder Richey said…
Make sure to file this one away for when you are General Relief Society, Young Women, or Primary president and are speaking in General Conference. It strikes me as the perfect story for a Conference talk :)

Enjoy the new laptop!
The Duke said…
What an interesting thought and experience you've had today. Wow. I didn't know you could get a laptop that would do that. (I'm such a dinosaur.) And your connection to the conference talk was great!
Katie, you are nice. I wish this was my insight but it was Mike's. I'll tell him he should file it away for when he is a general authority. I wish he posted more often.
Saimi said…
Hey, I bet Mormon Mommy blogs would like to guest post your post! You should submit it!

I'm proud of you for figuring all that out. Even if my laptop is capable of voice recogition I doubt I'd ever be able to figure it out!
I thought it was Mike. Any way to kind of related things:
1. I changed my home phone service to Vonage, and the first day with them, I got an email titled PMVonage Visual Voicemail from XXX-XXX-XXXX - New Voicemail Received, and the body of the email was a computer generated transcription. It also attatches a .wav file so you can listen to it if you want. Which is important if the person leaving your message isn't speaking english. The following is the "transcription" from what a friend who speaks spanish left for us:
Hello do not know Richard, this is XXXXX XXXXXXX and so I was kinda loud to see Mr. they got discuss like might like I said some another school. Know if you have a little. bye bye
2. I got a call from some one asking for Bishop Richards. I replied "I'm not a bishop. I'm Ward Clerk Richards. Can I help you with something." The guy figured he had the wrong number and politely hung up. I later checked the inbound number and realized that it was the optomotrist that's supposed to do my prerefractive surgery screening. He asked for SPECIALIST Richards, and I heard BISHOP. I don't know how that happend, but maybe your computer will think up all kinds of funny things for you to have said.
Lilola said…
Great insight! And I just discovered that I have voice recognition software on my laptop! Go figure...
Michelle said…
I think I knew that there could be voice recognition on laptops, but wasn't sure. I have barely figured out my voice recognition on my cell phone. My son keeps saying that I need to have my phone set up so I can talk to it and it will dile a number for me so I don't have to dial it. Either way I feel like I hardly use my phone so why does it matter, but voice recognition on a laptop would be super awesome for people with carpal tunnel or those that want to do the dishes and type at the same time. Great post.
chelsey said…
Very insightful. I think I'll keep this thought stowed away too. Thanks for sharing so we can all steal it! :)

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