Calling Nostradamus! When am I getting this stuff?

[Worf101]

As I gets older and more crotchety I realise the convenience and ease of use is beginning to mean more and more to me. There's certain things I've been waitin' for and certain things I want and I want em NOW. I hoping that you... my connected friends will tell me when I will be getting this good stuff. I'm not talking about "flying cars" and "jetpacks" I'm talking about more practical stuff.

1. Voice activated Home Theatre:
How hard can this be? I want to be able to come in from work, plop down and say "T.V." and have it, the HT receiver, cable box and all and sundry come on and start to workin'. How difficult is this? Voice recognition has to have advanced to the point I can have a "hands free" electronic system in my living room? When?!!!

2. Hands Free Driving:
I want what Will Smith didn't want in I Robot! Let the effin' car drive itself while I scratch, snore and fart!!! I KNOW the tech exists, give it to me!!! Now!!!!!

3. Curved Wall Sized Monitors:
They've been a promising me wall sized monitors since the 1930's!! Gimme what I want and gimme now. I also want this screen to be micron thin, foldable and portable! So there!!!

4, HAL 2000:
You'd think by now the braniacs would've gotten me enough processing power to give me a BRAINIAC!!!! I want my PC to TALK to me, answer my questions, provide me with facts and fun without me having to still touchtype anymore!!!! It's 2011 and I'm STILL using a glorified typewriter to write down my thoughts with? Are you chittin' me?

Well, I think this list is enough to get started on. Hopefully you folks will have good answers for me so that my latter years will be warm and wonderful. Thanks in advance.

Worf

[kelsci]

Hi Worf; At least we have remote controls for our tvs,receivers and dvd/blue ray players to name a few. For years I or my family owned television sets that had no remote controls nor electronic tuning. I remember a relative of mine having a Zenith Space Command black and white portable. I think those tvs might have been the first to have a remote control and it was a convenience.

I remember reading MY WEEKLY READER in public school in the 1950s. There was an article on hands free driving where some kind of guidance system would be put in the middle of the road to tell the car what to do. I think I recently saw an article talking about nearly the same thing. Nothing ever came of this. I think if you have a car that can drive itself, it is going to need some kind of onboard computer guidance system of a very sophisticated nature. I think it would be too costly to put and maintain guidance systems on all the roads of this country or for that matter the whole world. I think there is a car out that parks itself so I guess that is a start.

At this point the only computers that one could talk too were HAL and the onboard computers on the Star Trek series. In fact I had a big laugh in Star Trek IV when Scotty starts talking to a computer in the 1980s and waiting for it to respond to his voice and then realizes he has to use a keyboard. I think we would be talking of an aritificial intelligence that would have to be created to do this kind of thingy as long as the artificial intelligence does not take a mind of its own and eliminates us flesh and blood human beings.

I am already in my latter years and one good thing that I like is those remote controls.

[ForeverAutumn]

I hear ya Worfster! I can't help you though. But I agree that the technology for most of what you are asking for exists.

I bought a new car this year and one of the options was for the car to be able to parallel park itself. Now, I know how to drive and park a car so I didn't see the need to pay extra for the car to park itself but there're a lot of people out there who are ****ty drivers and certainly the car could drive itself better than they can drive it. So I'm all for the technology for those who want/need it.

The thing that my car did come equipped with is a voice-activated hands-free system. I can tell the car who to phone, what media I want to listen to, and I'm sure a whole bunch of other things I haven't learned how to do yet. So why can't you just walk into your house and say "TV" to turn on the TV? I don't know.

You know what I'd like to be able to do? Record on my DVR in one room and watch that recorded show in another room. C'mon, with all the wireless technology that exists I still can't watch my DVR'd soap opera if Hubby wants to watch hockey on the 'good' TV? This one is a marriage saver, I tell ya!

[GMichael]

I hear ya Worfster! I can't help you though. But I agree that the technology for most of what you are asking for exists.

I bought a new car this year and one of the options was for the car to be able to parallel park itself. Now, I know how to drive and park a car so I didn't see the need to pay extra for the car to park itself but there're a lot of people out there who are ****ty drivers and certainly the car could drive itself better than they can drive it. So I'm all for the technology for those who want/need it.

The thing that my car did come equipped with is a voice-activated hands-free system. I can tell the car who to phone, what media I want to listen to, and I'm sure a whole bunch of other things I haven't learned how to do yet. So why can't you just walk into your house and say "TV" to turn on the TV? I don't know.

You know what I'd like to be able to do? Record on my DVR in one room and watch that recorded show in another room. C'mon, with all the wireless technology that exists I still can't watch my DVR'd soap opera if Hubby wants to watch hockey on the 'good' TV? This one is a marriage saver, I tell ya!

That DVR thingy is available through satalite companies. I haven't seen it for cable.

[GMichael]

Hi Worf; At least we have remote controls for our tvs,receivers and dvd/blue ray players to name a few. For years I or my family owned television sets that had no remote controls nor electronic tuning. I remember a relative of mine having a Zenith Space Command black and white portable. I think those tvs might have been the first to have a remote control and it was a convenience.

I remember reading MY WEEKLY READER in public school in the 1950s. There was an article on hands free driving where some kind of guidance system would be put in the middle of the road to tell the car what to do. I think I recently saw an article talking about nearly the same thing. Nothing ever came of this. I think if you have a car that can drive itself, it is going to need some kind of onboard computer guidance system of a very sophisticated nature. I think it would be too costly to put and maintain guidance systems on all the roads of this country or for that matter the whole world. I think there is a car out that parks itself so I guess that is a start.

At this point the only computers that one could talk too were HAL and the onboard computers on the Star Trek series. In fact I had a big laugh in Star Trek IV when Scotty starts talking to a computer in the 1980s and waiting for it to respond to his voice and then realizes he has to use a keyboard. I think we would be talking of an aritificial intelligence that would have to be created to do this kind of thingy as long as the artificial intelligence does not take a mind of its own and eliminates us flesh and blood human beings.

I am already in my latter years and one good thing that I like is those remote controls.

I WAS the remote in our familly. "Mike, turn it to channel ..."
"Mike, turn it to ..."

When we did get our first remote, it came with a cord to the TV. So we always had this while cable running through the living room.

[hifitommy]

OK, what i want is remotely controllable VTA on my turntable. david shreve thinks i am nuts but what better than to be able to make the change from your listening seat where you can HEAR the improvement/degradation?

this is possible with some subwoofers for that same reason, why not VTA? yes, it would be costly to have a fine step motor and fine threaded collet for tiny adjustments but what an improvement!

[recoveryone]

You know what I'd like to be able to do? Record on my DVR in one room and watch that recorded show in another room. C'mon, with all the wireless technology that exists I still can't watch my DVR'd soap opera if Hubby wants to watch hockey on the 'good' TV? This one is a marriage saver, I tell ya!

I have Direct TV with the whole house setup which allows me to record from any box in the house to the DVR downstairs and view from any box in the house, off the DVR also.

[Mygaffer]

Well this technology exists but its really only now approaching the point where it will be good enough to see widespread use. Apple's Siri is a great example, it works fairly well from what I have heard. Its not something that would make me buy an iPhone, I prefer Android based phones, but it is progress on the voice recognition front. That computer they programmed to play Jeopardy is also a good example of the kind of technology needed to make voice command systems work. The computer will have to not only understand what you say, i.e. what words come out of your mouth, it will also need to parse those words, figuring out what you actually want it to do, then perform that function. That is a terribly difficult thing for a computer to do, but they've made some great advances. There is still a long way to go. I don't think we'll see truly effective voice command systems for a decade at least. Time will tell, it will also tell if most people prefer voice command to other input methods.

[Worf101]

Well this technology exists but its really only now approaching the point where it will be good enough to see widespread use. Apple's Siri is a great example, it works fairly well from what I have heard. Its not something that would make me buy an iPhone, I prefer Android based phones, but it is progress on the voice recognition front. That computer they programmed to play Jeopardy is also a good example of the kind of technology needed to make voice command systems work. The computer will have to not only understand what you say, i.e. what words come out of your mouth, it will also need to parse those words, figuring out what you actually want it to do, then perform that function. That is a terribly difficult thing for a computer to do, but they've made some great advances. There is still a long way to go. I don't think we'll see truly effective voice command systems for a decade at least. Time will tell, it will also tell if most people prefer voice command to other input methods.
As big a boon as that kind of voice recognition would be for lazy ole bastiches like me, I'm sure it would make the lives of the handicapped much much better. Here' hoping the future hurrys up and gets here while I'm still alive to see it!!!

Worf

[filecat13]

Well this technology exists but its really only now approaching the point where it will be good enough to see widespread use. Apple's Siri is a great example, it works fairly well from what I have heard. Its not something that would make me buy an iPhone, I prefer Android based phones, but it is progress on the voice recognition front. That computer they programmed to play Jeopardy is also a good example of the kind of technology needed to make voice command systems work. The computer will have to not only understand what you say, i.e. what words come out of your mouth, it will also need to parse those words, figuring out what you actually want it to do, then perform that function. That is a terribly difficult thing for a computer to do, but they've made some great advances. There is still a long way to go. I don't think we'll see truly effective voice command systems for a decade at least. Time will tell, it will also tell if most people prefer voice command to other input methods.

I'm surprised by how well SIRI works in its beta state. It's far from perfect, but I admit it surprises me with how well it hears me and gets what I'm saying.

Two months ago I would have said voice control is a long way off. Now I think it's less than two years, maybe less than 18 months.

If Steve Jobs thought he'd "cracked the code" for the next level of TV, I'll bet it includes the whole gamut of HT. I can't dump all my friggin' remotes too soon. I just hope Jobs told somebody before he died.

[filecat13]

1. Voice activated Home Theatre:
How hard can this be? I want to be able to come in from work, plop down and say "T.V." and have it, the HT receiver, cable box and all and sundry come on and start to workin'. How difficult is this? Voice recognition has to have advanced to the point I can have a "hands free" electronic system in my living room? When?!!!


4, HAL 2000:
You'd think by now the braniacs would've gotten me enough processing power to give me a BRAINIAC!!!! I want my PC to TALK to me, answer my questions, provide me with facts and fun without me having to still touchtype anymore!!!! It's 2011 and I'm STILL using a glorified typewriter to write down my thoughts with? Are you chittin' me?



Worf

Looks like Apple is going to give you both of these in basically one product: SIRI (plus the iCloud if it ever works). Maybe the beech can drive your car and sing you a lullaby, too.