I was working on a file the other day when my iPhone popped up a message: “A word has been recognized that could be a doorbell.” Really, a doorbell rang.
This is a new collection of accessibility notifications for those who have difficulty hearing Apple has rolled out Lots of things lately, And Google’s Android has done the same.
In fact, the iPhone has several sounds that it is trained to hear: fire alarms, sirens, smoke alarms, cats and dogs, appliances (although II’m not clear about exactly what appliances, car horns, doorbells, knocking on doors, broken glass, kettles, running water, baby crying, coughing and screaming. It needs to disable the “Hey, Siri” voice command if it is listening for other words. It is not clear why; If the phone is already listening, why not include the “Hey, Siri” command in the list of items to listen to?
But what if this word-recognition could be tweaked to do basic IT and operational tasks? Think of it as an option to customize the phone to hear specific sounds for your company. Like the classic machine learning example, the phone can hear a sound in the workplace and say, “It sounds like the XYZ component of a huge part of the machine is overheating.”
Or perhaps the feature could be something more effective, such as detecting when a certain person is coming down from the hall. “Warning! Why coming forward from the legal. Hide now. “Or maybe you can put the phone near an open window so it can hear the sound of your boss’s car approaching?
It can also become a bad management tool, warning someone if no keyboard clicks are detected for a predefined period of time. How about a helpful identifier? If caller-id is not German, can it be programmed with all user voices so that it can flag the caller’s name? (An evil version will identify employees who call an anonymous complaint line.)
Take it up a notch and a smartphone can be customized to help you recognize any word to help business. We already know that the video conferencing system is always listening – Even when you have muted your mic – But what if the phone can actually help identify who is talking? Some systems now offer it, but it’s not universal and it doesn’t work regularly with the systems it claims.
Ever run with a quick talk at work? What if the phone could hear and pipe a slower and clearer explanation into your earbud? Yes, it can also display a realtime transcript on the screen, but it is difficult to see that screen constantly and not notice. The earbud prompt is more isolated.
Then there is always the real-time “voice-lying detection” alert. Imagine chatting with your supervisor and hear, “This is probably a lie.” This can be helped by a high level of sighing or hearing the wind leading to a warning prompt during the presentation of the board or the audience: “Wrap it up. You’re losing them. “All right, a good speaker Should Know this, but if the speaker focuses on some complex content, he will not be able to focus on distracting the audience.
Since Apple, Google, and others work for the perfect accessibility feature that’s really useful and helpful, it’s clear that much more can be done with these devices.
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