[lit-ideas] Re: Political Schadenfreude
- From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 20:24:13 +0000 (GMT)
Some of the errors at the zdnet site (thanks for the link, JL) make some kind
of sense if we're prepared to accept the would-be surfers using an iPhone to
surf insisted on saying "iPhone" into the search box...
(Telegraph quoted by zdnet)
>A user from Surrey, south of London, had his request mistaken >for “myspace”
>and “Einstein” was another option offered for “iPhone” >spoken with a Kent
>accent, it said.
also we don't know how carefully they spoke -- and I don't know the software.
> Maidstone in Kent,
> southeastern England.
> “I asked it to find my nearest pizza take away and
> it came back with something about volcanoes,”
> he added.
> “I asked it to find my nearest pub and it gave me a link
> to some kind of weird dating website,” said
> Ellinson.
I agree these searches make more sense but we still can't tell how bad the
software is (for non-US English speakers) without knowing exactly what these
users said.
-- my first continuous speech program was murder for me, US people were raving
about it... I found out by pure chance it had no UK voice files... but it
didn't do crazy things, it was simply very stubborn at times (for example, I
had to say 'coffee' with my best American accent or it would simply say "?").
Later the software expanded the number of US accents it covered as well as the
number of UK ones, and guess what? Now I can use the US voice files far more
easily.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
--- On Thu, 5/3/09, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Political Schadenfreude
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thursday, 5 March, 2009, 7:45 PM
> In a message dated 3/5/2009 1:46:39 P.M. Eastern Standard
> Time,
> judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> Why would a user say 'iPhone' when using an iPhone
> app for netsurfing?.
>
> Excellent point. Indeed, the source which seems to have
> been "The Daily
> Telegraph" (so you can sort of 'justify' the
> innacuracies) indeed perpetuates the
> gaffe at
>
>
>
> blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=533 - 70k - Cached -
> Similar pages
>
>
> When speaking the word “iPhone” into the application,
> a Scottish user was offered a porn website after it
> mistook
> his search for “sex,” the Telegraph reported.
>
> In some cases, we see the input was not really the
> atrociously otiose
> "iPhone" but more reasonable things:
>
>
> “I’ve got a traditional Kentish accent
> and the thing kept on spitting back ridiculous
> things,” said Roger Ellinson, 26, from
> Maidstone in Kent,
> southeastern England.
> “I asked it to find my nearest pizza take away and
> it came back with something about volcanoes,”
> he added.
> “I asked it to find my nearest pub and it gave me a link
> to some kind of weird dating website,” said
> Ellinson.
>
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