Crushes & Hexes

Crush: Developers Answering the Call from iPhone
Why We’re Loving It: We hope that of the 100,000 developers who downloaded the iPhone’s SDK will do something speech-related for the product. Though Google’s Android has been met with interest from companies like Nuance Communications, the iPhone’s fate with speech apps remains unclear. We didn’t get any TTS or STT last time, but maybe a group of speech-happy developers will change all that in coming years. Of course, the overwhelming response to the SDK release (those 100,000 downloads took place within just four days of the release) also brought up fears that some of the downloads came from hackers. For more on that, check out this article from eFluxMedia.

Hex: Directory Assistance – Paid, Ad-Based, or Free – You’ve Gotta Step It Up!
Why We’re Hating: After a conversation with a vendor about directory assistance, I was thinking a lot about how often I have been frustrated beyond belief with DA speech recognition errors. Though I prefer free services (I’m 23. I’m poor.), the inefficient, broad search capabilities irritate me beyond belief. But the real problem? Poor speech recognition, and an insane amount of sensitivity to background noise. When do people typically call DA? When they’re outside. Outside conditions in New York are not what you’d call “serene,” to say the least. In addition, people in bigger cities like NYC or LA seem more likely to tap DA: we have more streets, more stores, and five freaking boroughs. As far as ad-based search goes, I haven’t found that quality improves, even with developers’ increased spending capabilities from the ad support ($$$$$). Paid services? No way. It just reminds me of my grandmother dialing information and being connected on a switchboard operated by Lily Tomlin. Developers: people love DA; people need DA; people want DA. Don’t ruin a good thing.