Microsoft Says Voice Will Emerge as Primary Input for Next Windows (youtube.com)
- Reference: 0178674510
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/14/1441240/microsoft-says-voice-will-emerge-as-primary-input-for-next-windows
- Source link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1a15gTxGl4
Windows interfaces, he said, will appear fundamentally different within five years as the platform becomes increasingly agentic. The transformation will rely on both local processing power and cloud computing capabilities to deliver seamless experiences where users can speak to their computers while simultaneously typing or inking.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1a15gTxGl4
No. Just no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine the horrible buzz of a thousand people talking all the damned time to interface with their machines? Not to mention just trying to browse around to stuff in the comfort of your own home without involving your family in every site you choose to visit?
What is the fascination with getting rid of text altogether? Are we going back to the age of oral tradition?
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Talking? How about yelling at their computers when the computers can't get things right.
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Nah, copilot has a bad case of CRS. Corp just dumped it and they're getting us Phind, instead.
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Progress. Or in this case, the appearance of progress. I doubt MS will be successful considering they have not migrated Control Panel to Settings yet.
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It is progress. Just like dumbing down everything is progress. Just like Idiocracy is progress.
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Are we going back to the age of oral tradition?
No, going forward to the age of Idiocracy.
MS bringing us the dream of a Star Trek futar (Score:3)
> The coming age of computer voice input.
Now. You know. Where. James Tiberius Kirk. Developed his. Speech defect.
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In reality, they can plan whatever they want but actual business needs will shape those ambitions. (Is Microsoft really intending to entirely abandon the server role? Nah.)
The phone, I think is much more likely to undergo a full transformation to something more like a "digital assistant" that acts in some ways like a human assistant.
But I also don't think 'computers as we know them' will disappear for what they have always been used for, and good for, and something like Windows must remain for that.
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"In reality, they can plan whatever they want but actual business needs will shape those ambitions"
You'd think, but then how often does MS ever listen to its customers? Seems as long as a narrowly selected focus group of students and unemployed hippies from Seattle who have nothing better to do during the day like something then its job done, ship it.
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We're giving college degrees to people who can't even read and write now, that's why.
Lower Your Supervisor (Score:2)
Raise your information superhighway interstitial tissue.
Cube farms - now with more annoying colleagues! (Score:2)
For the days I'm in the office - the guy one row over is already annoyingly loud.
This will be my personal hell.
I don't even like Waze talking to me for directions.
Good luck (Score:3)
It's not that any of this is a bad idea (under the right circumstances), it's just that Microsoft is probably going to be very bad at it.
Why would I want to talk to my PC (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, even in Star Trek, the crew *always* kept their fingers on their buttons/PADDs/controls. They only talked to a computer when they needed to have a crew member expose their thoughts and didn't have anyone else to talk to.
Heck, Windows has been pushing the Speech-to-text since Windows 2000 at least, if not earlier, and the use cases are few and far between.
Speech is *slow*. That's why people watch Youtube videos at 2x speed. I'd much rather read whatever talking heads have to say, but I'll settle for 2x-3x speed to find the part of video I'm actually interested in.
Maybe if they can get that Neuralink to work so it really goes at speed of thought, but even those experiments have so far been mostly about moving mouse cursors and the like.
Only places where speech makes sense from UI perspective are when you cannot really type, like when driving and you want to tell the car to navigate to wherever.
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Speech isn't only slow, its imprecise. Using a mouse I can navigate N levels down in explorer in seconds. Speech?
"Err, open C:/Users/Windows, no wait, /Users/Fred/myfiles/sales.docx"
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that, file not found"
"Ok, try .... wait, oh ffs, I can't remember, show me a directory listing!"
Etc
Knew it would happen eventually (Score:2)
I've been sticking with Windows out of inertia, I've learned to tweak and defang it so it works fairly well, and I've got an expensive piece of multi-track audio gear that requires Windows drivers -- not only that, but the state of pro audio on Linux is pathetic compared to a rich Windows ecosystem.
But this looks like it may be the final straw. Even if I have to buy new hardware and learn to deal with Linux audio, it looks like Windows is spiraling down the drain.
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That's interesting because I was just told by an apple fan that they must use macos because Windows drivers don't work.
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But define 'better'? Can't make Windows work at all better?
Yeah, that will be awesome... (Score:1)
NOT! I don't want to listen to someone in a meeting or on a plane/train talking to their laptop while I'm trying to nap.
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Agreed. It's bad enough now with people walking while talking to their phone in speaker mode around the grocery store, restaurant, street, etc. No one wants to listen to you AND the person on the other end.
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I was in Dr. office waiting-room recently. An old guy pulls out his phone, starts up a "hey Siri" text, has to repeat himself over and over because he's trying to whisper. Was so painful to just sit there and not tell that idiot to shut the f up.
The most common input (Score:5, Informative)
How long before MS notices that the most common user input is: "That isn't what I want you stupid f***ing piece of mindless sh**t." My guess is never b/c they really don't care.
And how will it respond? Will it be: "To pay your Microsoft bill say Yes." "To add Microsoft services say Yes." When you really want to get Excel to add up and then slice and dice costs across 20,000 invoices.
Eleven (Score:4, Funny)
As with most technolgies, the further away you get from Seattle the less likely it is to work.
I'm Glaswegian, other people can barely understand me. Windaes isnae gonnae work.
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Hell, my wife and kids find they have to artificially talk in a lower tone for Echo or Google smart speakers to understand them most of the time
Re:Eleven (Score:4, Funny)
Voice recognition... in an elevator... in Scotland?
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDnxzrbxn4
Oh no (Score:2)
Nuf said.
This didn't work before, this won't work ever. Windows is a desktop OS that is often used when other people are around. You don't want to annoy them or let them know what you're doing. And don't get me started on how imprecise voice commands can be. And how you can do most things a lot faster while using your keyboard/mouse rather than trying to explain to a stupid AI what is that you really want to do.
return to work? (Score:2)
an office full of people talking to their computers sounds just great
Don't worry (Score:2)
Microsoft is famous for never getting any future prediction right. Remember 640K should be enough for everybody? The internet is a fad? The house of tomorrow? Clippy?
If they figure you'll talk to your computer to give it commands, you can be pretty sure people will still be typing away on their keyboards decades from now, or interfacing with their neural lace, or anything else other than what Microsoft predicted.
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Ah yes, the most badly taken out of context comment ever.
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I am just awaiting the non-intrusive brain-link interface. I think faster than I act physically.
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> Microsoft is famous for never getting any future prediction right. .
I have a clear memory of seeing a pile of Gates' book in the Quincy Marketplace. On the front of the book was a sticker: Now revised to include the Internet. I thought: well, that is visionary. (This was years before /s, but you get the drift.)
Open floor plan offices are going to rule (Score:2)
40 people sitting at long tables yelling at computers. I canâ(TM)t wait to RTO.
What Is With Humans- (Score:2)
always wanting to make the mouth-hole flapping noises?
So freakin' annoying!
can't wait to play video games with voice control! (Score:2)
[1]https://youtu.be/9kBMscW_dVg?t... [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/9kBMscW_dVg?t=405
Please no microsoft. (Score:1)
I like my OS like I like my coffee, cold and not talking.
"BOB" 2025 (Score:2)
Remember Bill and Melinda's earlier attempt to reinvent compute UI to be "commonsense"?
It would appear that nobody at Micro$oft does today.
That sounds dreadful (Score:1)
Not only does this sound like legitimately terrible UX; I can also type a lot faster than I can speak.
I only have one thing to say to this: (Score:2)
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
Microsoft's "AI" is the reason I'm moving to Linux (Score:2)
I do not want their AI looking over my shoulder, I do not want to talk to it. I don't want it burning my CPU cycles, I just do not want any of it and I don't trust Microsoft to honor that if there is a switch to turn it off.
Microsoft has made it clear that Linux is the only way forward for me.
Windows 8 redux (Score:2)
"Touch screens are the future of Windows! Windows 10 is the last version of Windows! Voice control is the future of Windows!" Fuck you M$. My future is Linux, a gaming mouse, and a mechanical keyboard.
Great, just what we want (Score:3)
Computer, open the drawing of the F150 axle.sorry excel cannot open file named 150 on drive F.