'Texting While Driving' Solution
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It's not illegal to use a hands-free phone, assuming it's all properly installed. Bizarrely, it's not illegal to smoke! Lighting a cigarette while driving must be dangerous (I don't smoke, so have no personal experience of trying it)
Electron Shepherd wrote:
Bizarrely, it's not illegal to smoke!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Electron Shepherd wrote:
Bizarrely, it's not illegal to smoke!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
'Fraid it isn't. "Lighting-up at the wheel has been added to the list of "distractions" which police and lawyers can cite in court when seeking a conviction for a traffic offence. " "A major change is the inclusion of smoking at the wheel as behaviour that police may interpret as a distraction and failure to be in proper control of the vehicle." So, in summary, smoking while driving is not, in itself, illegal.
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Wouldn't that be about the same as just calling the person on the phone and actually talking to them? Last time I checked, every phone has that capability built into it already. ;)
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
Heh, not really... Think of the difference: Calling: "Call Bob" "Calling Bob... ring ring... ring ring..." "Hell- No, I don't want fries with that- Hello?" "Hey Bob, it's Joe, I was just-" "Hey Joe, caught me in the middle of something... One sec- I said a CHEESEburger, you idiot!" and so on... Voice Texting: "Text Bob." "New text message to Bob. Begin dictation" "Hey Bob, was just wondering if you wanted to go out for drinks after work. Get back to me... Send message" "Message sent." Then you just have to incorporate the inevitable jokes when it screws up the voice dictation... But my brain isn't powered up enough to think of a good one right now :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
Software like Dragon Naturally Speaking claims >> 90% accuracy however having tried this many times in the past it certainly has its problems. These things are very inaccurate with small words like a, an or the but really good with words like constitution, mammography, federation. That is as long as you speak in mono tone into a microphone.
John
That's the overall problem the SW will always claim 90 - 95% accuracy, however dependent on where its developed it will be with a clear spoken neutral accent. As you said if you start adding accents and background noise then accuracy drops rather quickly...
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That's probably in an idealised environment, which a moving car certainly isn't. My car has "voice control" for things like the CD selection, cabin temperature and so on. It works fine, but then it only has to deal with a very limited vocabulary. Even then, it gets things wrong sometimes.
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Heh, not really... Think of the difference: Calling: "Call Bob" "Calling Bob... ring ring... ring ring..." "Hell- No, I don't want fries with that- Hello?" "Hey Bob, it's Joe, I was just-" "Hey Joe, caught me in the middle of something... One sec- I said a CHEESEburger, you idiot!" and so on... Voice Texting: "Text Bob." "New text message to Bob. Begin dictation" "Hey Bob, was just wondering if you wanted to go out for drinks after work. Get back to me... Send message" "Message sent." Then you just have to incorporate the inevitable jokes when it screws up the voice dictation... But my brain isn't powered up enough to think of a good one right now :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)An the message received by Bob: "Hey Bob, I don't want fries I said a CHEESEburger, you idiot!" Needless to say - after a while you won't have any friends.
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You can train it, for up to two voices, but it works without training. The commands are of a set syntax , such as "Disc Three Track Four" for the CD player "Temperature nineteen" for the climate control "Navigation zoom in two" for the sat nav and so on, so the matching must be easier (and therefore more reliable) than "freeform" speech.
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With the pressure on to make texting while driving illegal (already law in 19 states in the US) I'd expect to see a lot of cell phone apps for converting speech to text, and back again. So far I've seen nothing of the sort, but I live a sheltered life. Are such apps available, and do they work? If not, are any of you working on one?
Will Rogers never met me.
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'Fraid it isn't. "Lighting-up at the wheel has been added to the list of "distractions" which police and lawyers can cite in court when seeking a conviction for a traffic offence. " "A major change is the inclusion of smoking at the wheel as behaviour that police may interpret as a distraction and failure to be in proper control of the vehicle." So, in summary, smoking while driving is not, in itself, illegal.
:thumbsup: The Highway Code is not law, it is suggested best practice and a road sign dictionary.
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
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With the pressure on to make texting while driving illegal (already law in 19 states in the US) I'd expect to see a lot of cell phone apps for converting speech to text, and back again. So far I've seen nothing of the sort, but I live a sheltered life. Are such apps available, and do they work? If not, are any of you working on one?
Will Rogers never met me.
But if the message you want to send is that important so you need to text while driving, are you really going to trust some dodgy speech recognition algorithm/software to do it right?
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Wouldn't that be about the same as just calling the person on the phone and actually talking to them? Last time I checked, every phone has that capability built into it already. ;)
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
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With the pressure on to make texting while driving illegal (already law in 19 states in the US) I'd expect to see a lot of cell phone apps for converting speech to text, and back again. So far I've seen nothing of the sort, but I live a sheltered life. Are such apps available, and do they work? If not, are any of you working on one?
Will Rogers never met me.
What about Vlingo? http://www.vlingo.com/[^]
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Wouldn't that be about the same as just calling the person on the phone and actually talking to them? Last time I checked, every phone has that capability built into it already. ;)
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
There actually is a reason that people prefer texting, at least in some cases. I have a number of friends who can't get a regular cell phone account - lousy job, poor credit, etc - and so use only prepaid services such as TracPhone. The cost per minute for phone calls on these things is enormous - $0.40/minute and up! The cost of a text, however, is just 1/2 minute, regardless of length.
Will Rogers never met me.
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There actually is a reason that people prefer texting, at least in some cases. I have a number of friends who can't get a regular cell phone account - lousy job, poor credit, etc - and so use only prepaid services such as TracPhone. The cost per minute for phone calls on these things is enormous - $0.40/minute and up! The cost of a text, however, is just 1/2 minute, regardless of length.
Will Rogers never met me.
I agree with you. Personnally I use texting more than talking on the phone now. In fact, I keep in touch with my wife and kids much more now that I've adopted texting as a mainstream form of communication, and our relationships are better for it. I just think it is ridiculous to have an app that will convert speech to text and then from text to speech. If that is really necessary, then revert back to the old school way of using a phone and call the person. Geez... (Now that I think about it a bit more, maybe I'll push this 'speech-to-text app' thing a bit more and then a couple of years from now I'll put out an app that allows people to call each other directly and actually talk to them. I'll make millions.)
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
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With the pressure on to make texting while driving illegal (already law in 19 states in the US) I'd expect to see a lot of cell phone apps for converting speech to text, and back again. So far I've seen nothing of the sort, but I live a sheltered life. Are such apps available, and do they work? If not, are any of you working on one?
Will Rogers never met me.
Using a phone at all (unless with a hands-free kit) while driving has been illegal since December 2003 in the UK. So voice to text and text to voice apps should have been around since then, but haven't been as far as I know.
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. Margaret Fuller (1810 - 1850) [My Articles] [My Website]
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Stupid ducking voice recognition!
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
phannon86 wrote:
Stupid ducking voice recognition!
:laugh: That would drive me nucking futs :D
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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With the pressure on to make texting while driving illegal (already law in 19 states in the US) I'd expect to see a lot of cell phone apps for converting speech to text, and back again. So far I've seen nothing of the sort, but I live a sheltered life. Are such apps available, and do they work? If not, are any of you working on one?
Will Rogers never met me.
Frankly, I would rather see work being done on automatically disabling cell phones entirely while your car is moving. If you are driving, you should not be dividing your attention between the phone and the road and cars ahead. At just 25 mph, your car moves 37 feet per second. Assuming an attentive reaction time in the range 0.5 to 0.75 seconds, that means that your vehicle will have moved a car length or more in your minimum reaction time when you're paying attention. If you're talking on the phone, your reaction time is probably more in the range of 1.0 to 1.5 seconds, and if you're texting, 2 seconds or more. That's a couple hundred feet at highway speeds, more than long enough to run into a situation you can't recover from. I know my limitations. I do not answer the phone in the car, I don't initiate calls, and I certainly don't text while driving.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
There actually is a reason that people prefer texting, at least in some cases. I have a number of friends who can't get a regular cell phone account - lousy job, poor credit, etc - and so use only prepaid services such as TracPhone. The cost per minute for phone calls on these things is enormous - $0.40/minute and up! The cost of a text, however, is just 1/2 minute, regardless of length.
Will Rogers never met me.
You do have a point there about the value of texting. That is my primary means of communicating with my daughter, who's off at school. Even though we have free phone-to-phone service, since it's on the same contract, text delivery is more convenient. I can send her a text early in the morning, and she'll see it whenever she gets up. Similarly, since I go to bed early, she can send a message late in the evening, and I'll see it the next day.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Frankly, I would rather see work being done on automatically disabling cell phones entirely while your car is moving. If you are driving, you should not be dividing your attention between the phone and the road and cars ahead. At just 25 mph, your car moves 37 feet per second. Assuming an attentive reaction time in the range 0.5 to 0.75 seconds, that means that your vehicle will have moved a car length or more in your minimum reaction time when you're paying attention. If you're talking on the phone, your reaction time is probably more in the range of 1.0 to 1.5 seconds, and if you're texting, 2 seconds or more. That's a couple hundred feet at highway speeds, more than long enough to run into a situation you can't recover from. I know my limitations. I do not answer the phone in the car, I don't initiate calls, and I certainly don't text while driving.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
What about the passengers? That would totally suck to be stuck on a bus and not able to use your phone because it's disabled.
-NP Never underestimate the creativity of the end-user.
I'll freely admit that's a hole in my suggestion :doh:. Public transit is probably an easier one to solve than the more general 'drivers vs. passengers' problem. How do you let passengers use their phones, while preventing the driver from using theirs? My feeling is it's not readily solvable through current technology, which leaves social mechanisms. Increased fines and/or automatic license suspensions for traffic violations while using a phone. Vehicle confiscation for multiple offenses. In the event the driver causes injury or death of another person, mandatory upgrade of the offense to felony levels with high minimum jail times. I have a feeling though that regardless of how draconian the measures become, the highways will still be full of assholes on the phone.
Software Zen:
delete this;