Talking iPods 194
chrisb33 writes to tell us the next iteration of the iPod may talk you through the menus instead of just relying on text. The Scotsman speculates on this new technology based on a patent filed by Apple in the US. From the article: "The patent reveals the idea is driven largely by safety considerations. It states: 'A user will have difficulty navigating the interface in "eyes-busy" situations. Such activities include, for example, driving an automobile, exercising and crossing the street." The patent also makes clear that text-to-speech technology is likely to spread to other hand-held electronic devices such as mobile phones and palm-top computers."
24th Century Technology! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:24th Century Technology! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:24th Century Technology! (Score:2)
Seems an obvious patent (Score:1)
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm more curious if Apple manages to make this feature a new defacto standard in the MP3 player market. I'm also wondering if this feature will come into play when and if they enter the cell phone market. It seems like a patent that applies readily to that market.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Your honor, Creative Labs claims prior art in the field of text-to-speech interfaces, and we can prove it. I'd like to call as my first witness Doctor Sbaitso [wikipedia.org].
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I actually posted about that 2 years ago when the shuffle was rumored. Can I dig up my old /. post and call it prior art? ;)
Of course, people thought I was nuts then...
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. I was playing with that concept some 15 years ago on a Commodore Amiga, and back then it wasn't a new concept either.
If this patent gets approved, it would show once more that the tests for non-obviousness and novelty are seriously broken.
Non-obvious:
Prior art in the form of existing text to speech implementations (Amiga and others) and menus (Mac, Amiga, others).
Known and/or well documented motivation to combine the 2: See any software aimed at making a computer accessable to someone who cannot read the screen for one reason or another.
Got to think of it, screen readers and such seem to implement menu to speech interfaces and have been for at least some 2 decades.
So.. the novelty part should be clear.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:4, Informative)
I expect what they will patent is the system where the computer does the text-to-speech and then loads up the created files to the player along with the actual songs, then the menu system plays them as appropriate.
So a bit more than just a text-to-speech menu system.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Preparing a sample on a 'high performance' machine for playback on a machine where realtime generation would be 'too expensive' for one reason or another is not exactly a new idea, and anyone who even needs a documented motivation for doing that seems in need of a new brain first
In other words, doing as you suggest should not make the patent valid because it should still fail being novel and non-obvious, even with todays broken concept of what 'obvious
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
I don't disagree, I was just pointing out that it wasn't just text-to-peach as some people were claiming.
Personally I think many patents are silly and obvious and lack any real innovation. I don't get to decide though, and this seems less obviously that stuff like one click ordering that got a patent, and I expect this does enough to get Apple the patent, unless the system gets an overhaul.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Yes, no.
As someone else already pointed out, the second question should not be relevant, rather, the relevant question should be: 'are you an expert in the field', and yes I am.
Maybe somewhere in the claims of the patent there is actually a genuine invention, I failed to spot it, but that might actually be one of the first and biggest problems with patents.
As an expert in the field, I should be able to take a patent and implement the invention described in it. A
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Almost. The purpose is legal protection in exchange for a documented invention. Patent law seems pretty clear about whom the target audience is for both documentation and things like 'obviousness', and it is not lawyers.
the context is not technology, or plain english and common sense, but the law and the universe of patents.
That is also the problem. The law and the 'universe of patents' exist for a reason, and failing to for
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
for english press one...
para el español prensa número dos...
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
Probably quite a bit longer, and with a zillion variations on the theme...
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
I was 7 and making simple games in Basic. I needed a menu system so I built one. The text to speech software barely added 20% to the menu's size increasing it to some 20kb. that's right kilobytes.
I bet the other guy did it 20 years ago as well since by 1990 the comdore64 was really old.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh! But it's now being done on a computer!
Oh wait.
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:3, Insightful)
"Ahhh! But it's now being done by Apple!"
Re:Seems an obvious patent (Score:2)
And randomly it will go "don't turn around, there's a RIAA goon following you !"
Rockbox (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rockbox (Score:1, Flamebait)
And it can't even play AAC files. That's right. No MPEG-4 audio. In 2006.
But hey, it plays OGG!
Re:Rockbox (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Rockbox (Score:3, Insightful)
Rockbox supports gapless playback.
So you go play with your "elegant graceful interface". I prefer to listen to the music.
Re:Rockbox (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems obvious to me, but no one else has said it:
Don't buy an iPod if this is your mentality. You can save some money with another product that has more features but a worse interface. People don't buy iPods for the features, they buy them for the elegant interface that no alternative OS or product has been able to match.
Elegance? No, it's the scroll wheel. (Score:2)
Re:Rockbox (Score:2)
Being an opponent of DRM I hate to have to point this out, but merely supporting DRM in addition to real formats (as the iPod does) is not the same as requiring DRM (as some older Sony ATRAC-3 players did). Your argument is only valid against the iTMS and Sony's old music players, not the iPod.
I will grant you that refusing to use equipment that supports DRM is valid from an ideological perspective, however.
Re:Rockbox (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rockbox (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Rockbox (Score:2)
I fully expect a retort along the lines of "b-b-but it's fixed in CVS!" Don't even bother.
Re:Rockbox (Score:2)
Try this out today with Rockbox (Score:3, Informative)
The Rockbox [rockbox.org] open-source firmware for iPods and various other players has been supporting talking menus for ages. (Sorry, the Rockbox wiki seems to be down for the moment.)
Furthermore, it's free and does not try to lock you out of your music.
So what's up with the patent?
Re:Try this out today with Rockbox (Score:2)
What would be cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:1)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:3, Interesting)
t
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
As a musician, I found the thing completely worthless.
But, maybe somebody didn't.
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
1. Actually difficult to use, you really have to "think" about the melody. Very frustrating.
2. When you're using this system, you really need to know how the melody goes, bang-on, from the start. But people don't remember tunes that way unless they already know them really well. It's not uncommon for human singers to slip an octave -- or even a smaller interval -- when singing a somewhat unfamiliar piece.
3. When you don't know a song, it's usually the chorus or the "hook" that you have s
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
http://www.songtapper.com/s/tappingmain.bin [songtapper.com]
Re:What would be cool... (Score:2)
Of course with most people's beatboxing skills it would be more amusing for the onlooker.
Fan boy alert! (Score:2, Insightful)
"The ingenious system"
"clever software"
Give me a break!
Still sounds dangerous... (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes this worse is the translation from spatial to textual. This requires the user to reconstruct the spatial, requiring even more concentration.
How about voice recognition? Call out the artist or album and listen away!
You're right (but that applies to radios too) (Score:3, Insightful)
While driving, I argue that there is one task and one task alone that should be getting full spation reasoning awareness: driving.
I agree in principle that just reading off menu items to us is adding a level of abstraction, not simplifying anything. We haven't really seen how this would work, but it sounds like nothing much new. (Pre-OS X Macs certainly did this too.)
The thing about cars is, radios and cells phones are also distracting. When each of those came out people said they distracted from peopl
Re:Still sounds dangerous... (Score:2)
maybe, maybe not. (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology companies, especially Apple, have piles patented software features, devices, etc that have never seen the light of day. And speaking of piles, one of which is actually called "piles."
As I recall, Apple also has also recently patented several different new hardware interfaces for the iPod. You can bet money they're not all going to be implemented. Heck, none of them may be implemented.
Re:maybe, maybe not. (Score:2)
so i can have a conversation and it change? (Score:5, Funny)
*ipod changes* playing album: hello my name is q
*ipod changes* The Calling - Thank You.mp3
me > shut up!
caller > what?
*ipod changes* 03-lil_kim-shut_up_bitch.mp3
me > no not you, my ipod is freaking me out
*ipod changes* Ali G Indahouse-Da Soundtrack/14-another_level-freak_me-rns.mp3
caller > you know its weird to talk to that thing right?
me > your driving me crazy
*ipod changes* Fidel Cashflow (2005) - Rap/06-stack_bundles-hustlers_go_crazy.mp3
caller > what ever, forget the job!
me > no, wait a minute!
*ipod changes* ez-rollers/lickable_beats_lp_sampler/09-60_minute
real men dont mark this funny, real men mark it insightful!
Blindingly obvious (Score:2, Redundant)
Prior Art (Score:1, Redundant)
It would be supremely ironic if the USPTO are using a voice menu on their telephone system, and don't laugh it out of the door
Rockbox has this (Score:1)
E'nuf said
Ben
Road users of the world rejoice (Score:1)
That quote at the bottom that starts off sounding like a cautious endorsement from a safety watchdog is, in fact, saying they're still miles off:
"If people don't need to take
A Missed Market (Score:4, Insightful)
All of that said, I really hope this is something I can turn the fuck off. When I got my mobile phone it made a noise every time I'd press a button, when I'd turn it off, when I'd turn it on, when I'd dial a number, and probably a few things that I never got to. I was glad that I could turn it all off, otherwise I would have had to return it.
There seems to be an obsession with our technology beeping and buzzing to respond to our input. I know when I press a button; I don't need a noise to tell me what happened. The only time my phone needs to make noise is when I'm getting a phone call.
Re:A Missed Market (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad! -- Bad! (Score:2)
This could cause huge embarrassment (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This could cause huge embarrassment (Score:2)
Is it just me that HATES devices talking? (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my favorite games (Battlefield 2) is almost ruined by the constsant spamming in my ears of "Enemy unit spotted!" "ok" "roger sir" "well done team" etc.
Text is easy to skip, but voices arent, we seem naturally designed to respond to a voice, but we can ignore text. any device, application or game that talks to me just feels like someone nagging me. Besides, what accent will it have? pretty much everyone has at least one accent they hate, are people assuming a US accent is univerally appreciated?
Can you *imagine* how much MORE annoying the office paperclip would be if it spoke to you?
Re:Is it just me that HATES devices talking? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me that HATES devices talking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it just me that HATES devices talking? (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm - I wonder how you'll feel about the upcomming MS patent then. :-)
Like in the talking moose? (Score:2)
Great... (Score:3, Funny)
Anyone know where i can buy a portable, re-usable EMP device with say a 50m range?
Seems they improved speech-quality (Score:2, Interesting)
Pretty obvious (Score:2)
Honda does this (Score:2)
This iPod adapter that Honda makes does this; it reads to you the names of your albums, and you select the one you want when it says it.
Too bad it sucks. [nuxx.net] First of all, it would take, like, 2 hours to read me all of my albums on my iPod, so I can't jump to anything quickly... also, you have to click a button with a second or so of it reading the one you want. This is a bad idea when driving; the only thing I should have to respond to in a timely manner while driving is, well, driving.
One review I read o
Re:Honda does this (Score:2)
First of all, it would take, like, 2 hours to read me all of my albums on my iPod, so I can't jump to anything quickly... also, you have to click a button with a second or so of it reading the one you want.
Fortunately, it first lets you select a letter, then it lists all the albums (or artists, or songs, or playlists) that begin with that letter. (Unfortunat
Prior Art makes this unpatentable (Score:2, Funny)
While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm surprised all of those companies that make car radios and CD changers are still in business. Speaking seriously, the best interface would probably be a 5-button remote.
(1) Play/Pause
(2) Next song
(3) Prev song
(4) Next playlist
(5) Prev playlist
I may add that the buttons should be *big* to allow their use while wearing gloves - the profusion of many tiny buttons is o
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
Now taht I think about it, I thought the whole point of the iPod was that you loaded it with a week's worth of songs and either a playlist or randomised it. You shouldn't need to press any controls from the beginning to end of your trip.
Personally, despite a few gig of MP3, when I;m working I mostly just turn on the radio and let a DJ sort it out.
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
So, perhaps, a "I'm not really in the mood for this. NEXT!" Panic Button should be the only control on the thing? :)
-b.
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
Yeah, but I was thinking more like something like the dashboard of a Volvo 240. BIG dials for lights, fan, heat & A/C, thumb-sized buttons for air direction, old-fashioned rocker switches or large levers for everything else. The panel looks like it belongs in a Peterbuilt, but it's much more functional, intuitive, and easier to customize than the overdesigned interiors of cars t
Re:While driving? Safety? (Score:2)
Nope, that can be controlled by the car radio itself. Listening to an iPod through headphones while driving probably isn't too smart (nor legal most places).
-b.
Speakable Items and VoiceOver (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to believe this, but frankly, Apple has been letting their TTS and STT features languish since they were introduced to Mac OSX.
Speakable Items (speech to text commands) are a very simple arrangement: the engine is listening for a finite set of strings at any given time, so error rates are low. Fortunately, the set of strings is gathered from a set of filenames, so it's super-easy to make new strings and organize them by application. Unfortunately, most of the newer applications that are bundled with OSX have no hooks for automation nor sample scripts as speakable items. The speakable item must be an AppleScript or .app, for no discernable reason; I would love to be able to have voice-activated shell scripts without going through some ugly hack of a wrapper script, since it's "Unix" and all.
VoiceOver (text to speech prompting) is also fairly straightforward, but there's limited support and somewhat inconsistent controls. Many of the blind folks I've seen using voice prompts on other devices want their voice prompts to be very fast, even so far as to blur the words together into abstract "earcons." The AppleScript-invoked speech does not honor the OSX talking speed preferences, so the words just ramble on taking forever to finish. The talking is not a separately controllable volume channel, so if you turn up the iTunes, then the TTS voice will start yelling at you to compete, or worse, not be able to escape the iTunes mute control.
This is just a rumor, but for the sake of those who like or need good voice features in their interfaces, I hope it signals a new drive to finish what they've started here.
Eye-busy doesn't cover attention-busy (Score:2)
Eyes off situations is not what this is for.... (Score:2)
Why not add some basics (Score:2)
Re:Why not add some basics (Score:2)
The voice recorder, possibly, but a tuner I think is pretty unlikely.
patent (Score:2, Insightful)
Part of it already implemented (Score:2)
In case anybody is wondering, I only know about that because I'm currently doing audio interface research, and I had read one of his papers so I had looked up what other work he's currently working on. I have no affiliation with him or UNC, but I thought some Slashdo
Could apple become liable??? (Score:2, Interesting)
California law (Score:2)
Which is why it's illegal in California to wear earphones in phone ears while driving a vehicle or riding a bike. It's California Vehicle Code 27400 [ca.gov]. Not many people would think to read the CVC for rules and laws outside the DMV handbook. Ane even fewer would read it to see if they're violating any laws while on a bike. Yes, this is enforced.
Just as long as it doesn't say: (Score:2)
Phatbox (Score:3, Interesting)
It plugs into a CD changer interface and using the buttons on most head units, you can go forward/backward through playlists, genres, artists, albums, etc.
It tells you where you are in the menus, so you don't have to look at it. (Another good reason is that the CD changer interface is not sophisticated enough to show that data on the head unit...)
I think there's some alternative/oss text-to-speech sw out there, too.
This isn't new, is it? (Score:2, Insightful)
I had this idea first!! nah nah nah nah (Score:2)
Lets see, a bunch of engineers gets together for lunch.
"Hey dude, I got a great idea, I hate it when im on a train and I need to get out my ipod, and fear
getting robbed while I pop out my $400 ipod, I want voice menus."
Any one with a bit of 5 minutes spare would have put this in the todo list years ago.
Any one who wants super million dollar patents, email me, I have 1000 ideas worthy of patents, some 50 years ahead of
any technology capability of today.
Oh we copied statrek '60s tv
It gets better .. Re:I had this idea first!! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It gets better .. Re:I had this idea first!! (Score:2)
text to speech, while a nifty 'bell and whistle' is not something I'd run out and buy. Besides, it sounds like it is going to store the 'names' and titles on the HD...I'd rather use that space for my content...not text to speech items.
Re:It gets better .. Re:I had this idea first!! (Score:2)
Re:Yay more comfort! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm afraid you'll have to wait a few years for those. Expect to see them in Korea or Japan first.
Untill then, cars and trucks happily take their place. Those employ kinetic energy to compress instead of vaporizing you but the result is not much different usually.
Re:Aren't we forgeting something.... (Score:2)
Re:[prior art] Quake with audio menus (Score:2)