I have always been enamored by technology. Even as a kid, I tried to make my own robot. When in college I worked on an Artificial Intelligence project and I have watched every movie that ever came out with a robot in it. One of most amazing things for me has been voice recognition software… especially when it’s connected to some sort of program.
Back in college I remember downloading a program (off the internet – which was in its infancy and we were still calling it the world wide web. That is so yesterday.) The program was a typing program. I was going to be able to just speak into the microphone and have it TYPE my essays and papers for me. It was exciting.. I got all set up and ran thru the tutorial. I was to read the sentences on screen and the computer was going to analyze what I said and type it. So, as I recall.. it failed miserably. I read the sentence “Eat your vegetables”, and it typed “Beat your testicles”. I realized we had a LONG way to go and deleted the program.. waiting for technology to catch up to need.
It’s been a long time.
Finally it is here.
Since I got my iPhone.. I have had a chance to experience some of the most advanced voice recognition software available. I press a button on my iPhone and after I hear a small ‘beep’ I speak a command. Call my awesome wife, iPhone (dials Heather’s iPhone). I could have said ‘work’ and that would have called her office. Not too impressive.. nearly every smart phone can do this today (even some dumb ones). Play songs by The Rolling Stones (cranks up “You don’t always get what you want” and other fine tunes.) More impressive. I’ve got an app made by Google. This app has voice recognition for internet searching. I press a button and ask, “What is the diameter of the earth?” (which brings up on screen 12,756.2 kilometers or 7,926.28 miles at the equator). “What is the Indiana Jones Theme Song?” (brings up a 2 YouTube videos of Indy riding a horse jumping to a speeding jeep while the Theme song is playing.. and a ton of internet links for other sources). “Where is the Louvre Museum?” (brings up a map of Paris, France with a pin on the exact location, you can click another button for directions to get there). All impressive.. but hold yer horses… there’s more.
Yesterday I noticed a little button on the Google app I hadn’t seen before. I must have been blinded by my enthusiasm… anyway… it was a little button with an icon of a camera on it. Naturally I clicked it.
A quick explanation came on screen about usage: aim camera (oh.. the phone has a built in camera of course) at any monument, statue, work of art, product with a logo, any book cover, business card, bottle of wine or text (menu, signage, newspaper). The instructions said it would identify the monument, sculptor and painter of any work of art, tell you about the product, describe the book, add the business card information into your contacts list and dial the person if needed, and report about the bottle of wine. Also, If you take a picture of any text it will translate it from whatever language it is to English (or any other combination).
So.. I tried it… I took a picture of my V8 juice I was drinking and was soon on the product website. I grabbed an Architecture magazine near me and opened it up.. looking for a monument.. but found the interior photos of a museum.. took a picture and the app identified the artwork on the walls. I took a picture of some text (a document on my desk) and then translated it to German. I took a picture last night at home of a banana cream pie… it had trouble with that… and returned similar pictures of other pastries.
Unbelievable. Photo recognition software.
They said they are working on further advancement to be able to identify a tree if you take a picture of the leaf, and breed of dog if you took a picture of yours, etc. But it still has a way to go. It’s not too far off actually.. our iPhoto program on our computer at home (Apple).. can identify people in our photographs with pretty high accuracy.
So… technology blew me away.. again. I honestly wonder what is next?
OH.. here is the link if you want to check the program out for yourself:
http://www.google.com/mobile/goggles/
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