Brain Training in “racist” shock - doesn’t recognise northern accents
Here’s a little clip from last night’s Watchdog programme on the BBC, in which they get a selection of people with funny accents to try and play the voice recognition bit from Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training.
It doesn’t go very well, as a range of northerners are paraded in front of the camera and told to say the names of colours which the DS just can’t understand - until they put on their “posh voices” and try to talk like the Queen.
“Ber-loo. Ber-loo. BER-LOOOOO!”
Mancunian radio reporter Michelle Livesey told Watchdog “Basically you have to say the different colours that flash up on the screen as quickly as possible. I’m saying, blue, blue, blue and it’s saying no, even though it was blue. Then it got to yellow. I’m going, ‘yeller’ and everyone’s saying to me you need to be a bit posher. You need to say, ‘yellow’ and as soon as I did, it picked it up.”
They then try out BT’s voice recognition bit in an outside area while surrounded by traffic noise and background chatter, just to make it even less fair on the DS. Genius. Don’t let the facts get in the way of your non-story, Watchdog.
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February 5th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I saw this last night too. And thought it was unfair.
If you cant enunciate, then that’s your problem, not nitnty’s
February 5th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Dani’s got a really good point.
And besides, voice recognition technology is still taking it’s babysteps. I don’t think they realise that this technology is still very new and not 100% efficient. It needs more time to grow and develop.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
The whole feature was undermined by the presenter calling it ‘the DS Nintendo’. Watchdog… urgh.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
WJUK
Voice recognition technology is by no means ’still taking it’s baby steps’ nor is it ‘very new’. The technology has been in use for military and aviation purposes since 1988 and available commercially since 1994. Modern voice recognition software is now faster and more accurate than dictating to many secretaries and supports multiple languages.
What technology is 100% accurate also? I assume you were referring to accuracy rather than efficiency.
Look up Dragon NaturallySpeaking if you need a demo.
I do however agree with Dani; northerners should learn to speak properly. Perhaps elocution lessons should be made available for those afflicted with the disability of a colloquial accent.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@ML: Ok, so maybe it’s not totally new. But it’s far from perfect. One of the best (and free) voice recognition technologies comes with Vista and that has quite a lot of trouble too.
It said in the help section itself that this type of technology is still “taking it’s baby steps”. But what do I know, right?
I live up north (Lincolnshire) and I can use it fine…