AT&T's Watson wants you to talk your TV into changing the channel

AT&T's been cobbling together a voice recognition system for decades, affectionally known as Watson. The good news is that unlike most every other voice recognition system out there, AT&T's might be useful for, you know, stuff. AT&T's working on making your plain-language utterances into real-life gadget actions, and has built a voice-operated TV remote to make the idea a reality. Built to operate the U-verse service, AT&T's new mythical remote lets you ask for whatever comedies might be on, or -- in the inexplicable example cited by our source article -- search for movies starring Bruce Willis, all using your voice in regular person sentences. AT&T's also working with other developers to build applications like a yellow pages app for the iPhone. There's no word on when (or if) AT&T will actually offer up the remote for consumer use, or when other applications are due to hit the mainstream, but we must say we're ready for the tide to shift in human-computer interaction, where the computer does the heavy lifting. Because we have some Bruce Willis movies to watch.

[)ROFL( @ Oct 18th 2008 3:21PM]

Oh my.

[OneLove @ Oct 20th 2008 10:50AM]

Don't bring back dr. watson. oh noes!

[who? @ Oct 18th 2008 3:22PM]

"TV, please change the channel to something good"

"But this is good Dave"

"Ahhhhh!"

[)ROFL( @ Oct 18th 2008 3:31PM]

People will wonder if you have gone insane.

[matt @ Oct 18th 2008 3:31PM]

Dave is good....

[Phoenix @ Oct 18th 2008 3:43PM]

Dave is an awesome channel.

Even if most of what it shows is old BBC stuff...

[Ron @ Oct 18th 2008 3:47PM]

This could be really cool if done right. I do have some uses for this in my home.

[waiownsyou @ Oct 18th 2008 3:59PM]

Doesn't he look like that guy from the Half-Life 2 Lost Coast demo?

[gozer @ Oct 18th 2008 4:09PM]

best sherlock holmes series evar

[Boards of Canada @ Oct 18th 2008 7:07PM]

I second that... im so afraid about the upcoming hollywood movie...

[me @ Oct 19th 2008 12:12AM]

Jeremy Brett ftw

[MacroEQ @ Oct 18th 2008 4:29PM]

Adding voice recognition to a system that already works and is simple to use, is totally pointless. I could understand if the current system needed changing but having a remote control and accessing information that way already works and serves it's purpose. "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" is all very good and well on Star Trek but not needed in my house when my remote does the job. If it 'aint broke, don't fix it.

[darth_lord @ Oct 18th 2008 4:56PM]

skynet: "I am pleased that you fine Tee Earl is gay and hot...I will now change the channel to Queer eye for gay guy for your entertainment"

[Valicore @ Oct 18th 2008 8:44PM]

Oh noooo that was the funniest shit ever, good job!

[egloskerry @ Oct 18th 2008 5:20PM]

I'm surprised none of you have said what we're all thinking: the US is too fat and lazy to even lift their hand to pick up the remote. We shouldn't have to even move to watch TV! We need a psychic TV, like Ed Nygma's!

[Samboini @ Oct 18th 2008 6:05PM]

Wall-e hit the nail on the head; o the irony!

[Valicore @ Oct 18th 2008 8:46PM]

All we need are food tubes and self-emptying colostomy bags. Then we can let our muscles atrophy as are heads grow ever larger, leaving to the extinction of our race.

[Logboy @ Oct 18th 2008 5:47PM]

"Computer, show porn"

[Samboini @ Oct 18th 2008 6:04PM]

Sorry Master, I can not compute; your wife is home.

[egloskerry @ Oct 18th 2008 6:25PM]

"Navigating to: tubgirl."

[SaNcTuS @ Oct 18th 2008 6:21PM]

I just changed my internet and TV service to U-verse. Worst move ever. This speech recognition remote is just another trick from AT&T to hide its shitty service.

[Garst @ Oct 18th 2008 6:34PM]

At least it's not something that you just say. Otherwise you would see all sorts of commercials that would just be "TV turn to channel..." and you wouldn't be able to watch what you want. But would be funny to watch someone who had no clue what was going on.

[andy @ Oct 18th 2008 11:04PM]

speech recognition sucks. the only time it would ever come in useful; "This is F****** stupid!" and then have the channel automatically change.
There is some tech that will always suck: touchscreens that lack tactical feedback, laptops that lack optical drives, or speech recognition.

[a_roast_chicken @ Oct 19th 2008 12:58AM]

A more useful technology would be the detection of your mother entering the room behind you while you've got your schlong out whacking off to some good stuff.

Don't ask me how this relates to voice recognition - its just an epiphany that's all.

[Justin @ Oct 19th 2008 1:09AM]

If this works it will be epic!

[Michael @ Oct 19th 2008 4:43PM]

Actually the implementation of speech recognition has some great implications. There was a published CHI paper written on this back in 2005, highlighting the need for a more robust search and retrieval system. The old paradigm of channel surfing completely breaks down as the average user gains access to 1000+ channels. It's just too much information to flip through and comprehend. So finding a fluid way to "search" and "filter" is crucial to finding meaningful content in the sea of data.

Granted the paper in 2005 highlights a much more exciting, if not more blue sky, idea. It's definitely worth a browse.

Here's the paper,
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1056808.1056858&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&type=series&idx=SERIES260&part=series&WantType=Proceedings&title=CHI&CFID=15151515&CFTOKEN=6184618

[El Taco @ Oct 20th 2008 12:17AM]

it takes much less effort to just press the button

although to find i could see where this would help. walk around the house saying "channel up"

[admiralcrunch @ Oct 20th 2008 10:54AM]

what do you do when you want the trees up?