Author Topic: will typing become obsolete? I fear that I will loose my competitive advantage? (Read 15251 times)

FinancialWar · « **on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 11:19:56 »

I have trained myself very hard to touch type using Dvorak for the past 6 months, I can now get up to 80 words per minute which is faster than most people at my uni, (most of them can't even touch type) but a friend of mine just downloaded this program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking and got up to like 120 wpm is just like few hours of training. WTF, that's just not fair at all.

And with all the investment input into the typing. more than 10 years on QWERTY and 6 months of Dvorak, and spending more than 300 bucks on 2 filco keyboard. I fear that the investment would all go down the drain in the next couple of years. Especially with Microsoft putting Speech Recognition as a free software in all Windows 7 and vista, typing skill would no longer be a competitive advantage when it comes being efficient or looking for a job?

what are your thoughts? Will you guys sell you keyboards for a high-end microphone instead? Eventually we all have to adapt just like how typewriter became obsolete. It's just this speech thing came to me so fast and the accuracy just amazed me. I think that I will have to change to speech very soon too.

washuai · « **Reply #1 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 11:43:08 »

Speech recognition is a great technology, but it still isn't there yet. There have been for years a few people productively using the software, including programmers. People can talk 200-300 wpm, no problem. Even when it is, there will still be a need for nonverbal communication. You can't just have people blabbing information that needs to be secure, where everyone can hear it. What about those people computing in or near rooms where people are sleeping? Can you imagine the cost of sound muffling/proofing cubicles?

FinancialWar · « **Reply #2 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 11:51:58 »

Ripster: Microsoft Speech Recognition is ****, but it might bring voice recognition into mainstream just like how the ****ty iphone bought the smartphone into mainstream. Tried Dragon NatuarallySpeaking and then tell me if it is not accurate or not.

Yes, I was thinking that will the continuing improvement of speech recognition technology, high speed typing maybe obsolete skill. When I get the Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I would not need to type out 4000 words essay, but a keyboard is still required for surfing the net thought.

Maybe in the next generation or two, people can live with virtually no keyboard requirement

ch_123 · « **Reply #3 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 11:57:27 »

Assuming all the bumps with speech software are completely rectifiable (not going to happen...), there are inherent problems with it, some of which have been mentioned above -

1) Security. Pretty obvious.
2) Working in places that require silence.
3) Lots of people using it in the one place is going to generate interference that will be very hard for even the best microphones to deal with.
4) Working in places with lots of noise (factories, ships etc etc)
5) Portability. I can type on any computer I want to. Can any computer recognize my voice? Will they have to have a database of voices for people to access? Do I want something like that to exist out on in the public?

A lot of these problems could be theoretically solved if some sort of helmet was to be worn whilst typing. You may find however that people won't be too interested in this...

The thing to replace the keyboard will be some sort of neural interfacing. Whilst possible, it's not going to happen any time soon.

washuai · « **Reply #4 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 12:02:32 »

Oh yea, this reminds me how annoying using voice to navigate automated customer service options to finally get to a person. I'd rather key numbers in on my phone. I hate having to get increasingly louder repeating the same thing, until the crappy recognition software gets it. These kinds of companies tend to be the ones where you can't cheat and hit 0 to get humans.

Morning Song · « **Reply #5 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 12:37:09 »

My suspicion is that typing will always be around in some form. Even if voice recognition takes off (a pretty big if, i think), there will at least be a need for some form of private input. It's a lot harder to 'listen in' to someone typing. And can you imagine a computer lab, or an office, full of people all talking out loud to their computers at once?

Infinite north · « **Reply #6 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 12:39:10 »

http://www.emotiv.com/

I can see the geekhack of the future. it's a bunch of guys collecting old electrodes and eeg equipment.

FinancialWar · « **Reply #7 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 12:52:56 »

Quote from: ripster;185734

I hope you didn't type that.

In fact, I did type that, people tend to make a lot more mistakes when type than speaking.

Rajagra · « **Reply #8 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 13:03:01 »

Quote from: dvorak;185716

a friend of mine just downloaded this program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking and got up to like 120 wpm is just like few hours of training.

I'm calling BS on this. Unless you mean 120 wpm with 10% of the words being wrong. Once you factor in the corrections to make everything 100% accurate what was the final speed?

I did a lot of research and the consensus of opinion is that MS Vista is nearly as good at recognising words as Dragon, but Dragon has a lot more refinement and features (most important being ease of correcting errors.) I bought an expensive microphone and spent some days training Vista voice recognition. It was bloody hard work and I never got close to making it useful. Partly to blame is my deep voice, but I hoped the expensive mic would overcome that better than it did.

Even hardcore voice recognition users who throw money and time at the method struggle to stay close to 98% accuracy. And that's with "normal" language, once you move into technical talk the problem grows.

The challenge isn't how fast you can talk to the computer, its how to reduce errors enough to make it the better option.

It has its uses, especially for people what can't type easily. But apart from that it's still a solution looking for a problem.

Simple solutions > clever solutions when you want to get something done. Keyboards do the job fine already.

hyperlinked · « **Reply #9 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 15:48:39 »

I think the even bigger problem is that editing using voice is torture. Even with zero recognition errors, you can't compose at 120wpm. Of course this is also problematic when typing, but it's much easier to edit with a keyboard. I use speech recogniton on and off when my hands hurt and I often have to resort to hand editing because it is so tedious to move a cursor by voice.

WPM is meaningless unless you put it to good use. Completed word per hour or words per day would be a far better indicator of how useful voice is vs typing. In an expanded evaluation, the advantage for voice may not be as prominent or it may not be an advantage at all.

Speech recognition will grow and probably overtake typing in some specific applications, but typing isn't going anywhere and it will never be a bad investment to learn to touch type.

Another factor is fatigue. How long can you talk for without wearing out your voice? Some people have to compose over a hundred emails a day every single day week in and week out. Anyone fitting this profile will not have a voice very long if voice recognition was the only way to go.

To be sure, we will be making more room for voice recogniton technologies and it's something we should look forward to because just as I find it silly to think that everything will be touchscreen or that everything will be voice recognition in the future, I find it just as shortsighted to believe that real keyboards are always the best input tool. It all depends on what you're trying to do and what the physical constraints of the device are.

Let's not ignore technological constraints either. Real keyboards have been impractical for a lot of mobile devices for a good long while now. I'm talking about things like old school cell phones and smaller smartphones that resort to predictive typing because they need to accommodate the entire alphabet in only 10 or 15 buttons. That's quite an imaginative way of fitting more into less space, but do you think device designers will continue to use predictive type if these no-frills phones suddenly had enough software and hardware prowess to handle voice recognition?

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #10 on:** Sat, 22 May 2010, 18:05:13 »

Quote from: dvorak;185716

I have trained myself very hard to touch type using Dvorak for the past 6 months, I can now get up to 80 words per minute which is faster than most people at my uni, (most of them can't even touch type) but a friend of mine just downloaded this program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking and got up to like 120 wpm is just like few hours of training. WTF, that's just not fair at all.

And with all the investment input into the typing. more than 10 years on QWERTY and 6 months of Dvorak, and spending more than 300 bucks on 2 filco keyboard. I fear that the investment would all go down the drain in the next couple of years. Especially with Microsoft putting Speech Recognition as a free software in all Windows 7 and vista, typing skill would no longer be a competitive advantage when it comes being efficient or looking for a job?

what are your thoughts? Will you guys sell you keyboards for a high-end microphone instead? Eventually we all have to adapt just like how typewriter became obsolete. It's just this speech thing came to me so fast and the accuracy just amazed me. I think that I will have to change to speech very soon too.

I can do 120 WPM on QWERTY... so much for DVOARK.

And no, speaking isn't quite the same as typing. That's like saying paper and pens will become obsolete, I don't think so.

So, what about gaming? Are you going to shout at your microphone to do gaming instead? Keyboards are a prime concept, they'll never go away.

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Author Topic: will typing become obsolete? I fear that I will loose my competitive advantage? (Read 15251 times)