Comments on: Robots say the craziest things

By: NicoleLeeWhite

NicoleLeeWhite — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:16:00 +0000

I have used voice dictation on my Android phone once. It interpreted “gmail” as “shemale”. I gave up after that.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:50:00 +0000

It’s like watching the evolution of the modem.

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:24:00 +0000

Forty years ago you were expected to do such things. If you did it today, you’d be expelled (and labeled).

By: kmoser

kmoser — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:50:00 +0000

“Sharon Connor?”

By: Gerald Mander

Gerald Mander — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:41:00 +0000

It’s Philip K. Dick’s world. We’re just living in it.

By: Joe Gilbert

Joe Gilbert — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:36:00 +0000

Props for a Walter Mitty reference!

By: keith fulkerson

keith fulkerson — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:30:00 +0000

There’s a Three Stooges episode where Larry is using a geiger counter and it goes caclikcaclikcaclik. Moes asks Larry, “What does the geiger counter say?”. Larry replies, “caclikcaclikcaclik”.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:27:00 +0000

There’s accent, and then there’s manner of speech. It’s possible you just manage to confuse the crap out of them. My mother has the same problem – robots find her incomprehensible.

By: fredh

fredh — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:04:00 +0000

Clearly, he broke into lobster language.

By: chris coreline

chris coreline — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:54:00 +0000

i would like to nominate the last two comments for this years boing boing microfiction prize.

By: gwilliker

gwilliker — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:49:00 +0000

Great, now I’m craving mac & cheese….

By: Vincent Vanhoucke

Vincent Vanhoucke — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:28:00 +0000

Bug filed :)

By: Lemoutan

Lemoutan — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:23:00 +0000

mKaye

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:17:00 +0000

Are you sure you weren’t saying “DakkaDakka”?

By: Dan Hibiki

Dan Hibiki — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:16:00 +0000

stupid android broke the chalice from the palace now it can’t find the vessel with the pestle and the flagon with the dragon is being shipped via UPS.

By: bkad

bkad — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Android’s speech recognition and dictation features are ‘barely functional’ on my phone, an HTC Thunderbolt. I don’t know whether the problem is my phone or that I am doing something wrong — since I don’t have much luck when I borrow friends’ iphones either, maybe it is just that I have unrealistically high expectations. Boing boing readers, have you found speech recognition quality varies between phones, or are all phones pretty much the same (having similar software)?

My native accent is the “General American” newscaster English that people from other regions pay big bucks to emulate, so I don’t think the way I speak is the problem.

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Actually, I think your Nexus did a better job of representing the sound using English letters than most humans would be able to do.

Now that I’ve seen it spelled out….that’s exactly what wheeled suitcases sound like.

Good show, little Nexus! I’d say bravo/a, but I’m not sure which is appropriate.

By: Souse

Souse — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Automatopoeia.

By: kbmcg

kbmcg — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:58:00 +0000

Better title: “Suitcases say the darndest things.”

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:55:00 +0000

Makes me wonder how it would fare in Wales.

By: Ryan Lenethen

Ryan Lenethen — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:53:00 +0000

When the android was reached for comment it added that “…the “i” and “c” letters were not functioning…”

By: Steve Miller

Steve Miller — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:41:00 +0000

“… queep!”

By: Mitchel Ahern

Mitchel Ahern — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:10:00 +0000

Then play it back text to speech, and you’ll be having a conversation with you rollaway.

By: sigismund

sigismund — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:06:00 +0000

….just an excuse for you to point out you managed to get a Nexus 4… ;)

By: Irina

Irina — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Wasn’t it Terry Pratchett who once had a page full of “rrr rrrr rrr” because his cat had been asleep on the microphone, purring?

By: Crashproof

Crashproof — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:59:00 +0000

When I was a young nerd, I built a speech synthesizer interface for a Commodore 64. The interface part didn’t work in time for the school science fair, but with DIP switches you could still trigger it. In addition to phonemes, it had everything needed for a talking clock… but there was a glitch. It would often say “elevennnnnn-nnnnnn-nnnnnnn-nnnnnnnnnnEIGHT OH.”

I wish I still had it, now that I’m into glitch music.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:39:00 +0000

Stupid robot! Couldn’t it spell onomatopoeia?

By: euansmith

euansmith — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:38:00 +0000

How did it handle, “The chalice from the palace is the brew that is true”?

By: Lyle Hopwood

Lyle Hopwood — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:32:00 +0000

This gave me the I’m Living In The Future feeling. Not because Cory was talking to a robot as he walked – I grew up on Science Fiction and always assumed that this would happen eventually (and where’s my flying car, dammit?) The futuristic part is that his suitcase has wheels. When I was little, they didn’t, and if you couldn’t carry your own with your hands you had to hire a man (a porter) to carry it for you. It seems so obvious that they should have wheels that’ it’s hard to remember it had to be invented. (Terry Pratchett’s The Luggage reference goes here.)

By: Snig

Snig — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:17:00 +0000

Mine translates it as “pocketa, pocketa, pocketa…”