Comments on: Talk to the car with new tech

Voice-recognition technology could ensure that gadget-happy drivers keep hands on the wheel.
Photos: Hands-free digital audio

[Crunchy Doodle]

Automotive Voice Control

My 2004 Infiniti M45 has voice control for climate control, entertainment and navigation systems. It works most of the time. I understand its limitations and work within them. It's not even as smart as a dog.

Unlike humans, it has trouble with other people in the car talking while I'm issuing a command. No child would have a problem hearing Mom say, "Now stop hitting your sister!", while Dad is talking to the oldest boy in the back seat about the score of his last basketball game. We have excellent signal processing that operates at a very high level of context and the meanings of words in that context. We can easily focus our listening to just one person among several others while they all are talking. Currently, machines have no hope of coming close.

So, yesterday while driving with my wife and looking for a particular street, I waited a few seconds for her to not be talking, pressed the talk button on the steering wheel and issued, "Navigation, where am I?". My car repeated in that perfect female American voice, "Navigation, where am I?" and showed me. If my wife had said even one quiet word, I would have been beeped at.

Good luck to these new innovators. They have a very long way to go.

[Jim Hubbard]

The problem is not one of controlling the gadgets...

...It is of controlling one's own thoughts.

The problem with all of the car gadgets is the same as the problem with using a cell phone while driving.

It doesn't matter if you are using a handheld cell phone or a speakerphone, searching through the radio stations by hand or by voice. The problem is that your attention is not on driving, where it should be.

If anything, fewer car gadgets would make the drivers and roads safer.

[bigduke]

controlling gadgets

We just blew a wad and took delivery on a Prius. It is an electronic juke box. I'm sure it will take a few long days finding all the twists and turns in the whole interface. OTOH the display is most impressive. Not your ordinary dashboard. Important stuff is way up under the windshield and looks to be imune to washout by external sunlight or other illumination. Another thing is that it will display either metric or English measure for speed and distance. Neat touch when we go North.

It is awsome to sit in traffic with zero gas consumption. Engine startup is next to un-noticable. But the power is there. I asked around before purchase about source of the low voltage during shutoff. It turns out there is a regular 12V lead acid battery that keeps that part awake. So the light and fan loads have to be rechaged when the gas engine starts.

Once the sequences are put in the mind it will be as automatic as the present day vehicles.

Time and our memo book will show how close one can come to the fuel use numbers that the tests pronounce.

Since we already have three GPS hand helds we passed by the huge cost of built in navigator. Same for most of the other high cost stuff. Made the usual (for us) single payment for a clear title. In our state that saves recording fee and releases. Every buck counts. Now we start saving for next vehicle replacement in about 8-9 years. And earning interest until then.

[marileev]

Reminds me of BMW Australia Story

I subscribe to different news feeds, and I remember technology like this entering the BMW market in Austraila. In June (2005)BMW tested it and called their integrated car technology "ConnectedDrive."

[ErvServer]

wife talks all the time

I think she would overload this system