One way to make a point is to advocate an extreme position.  Take for example, voice recognition (“VR”) technology. Some say that in the future, the keyboard will be obsolete. But even if VR technology became very accurate, don’t sell your keyboard company stock just yet. Realistically, there are many uses for keyboards such as accounting, programming, gaming and of course social networking (TWITA).

VR has come a long way recently and now almost all mobile phones come with VR for voice dialing, note-taking and memos. Plus there are many VR app choices that are now available for download.  But, when you take a look at the reviews of these apps you will notice that VR still has a long way to go.

However, just as VR is evolving, we should also expect keyboards to evolve.  As one article pointed out, “the standard QWERTY keyboard comes from a design that was made to slow typists down – to keep those old mechanical keys from sticking together.” One evolution that I discussed in a previous blog is the SWYPE technology that helps us to use the keyboard screens on our phones more effectively.

VR technology can help with more than just our texts and emails according to AT&T. AT&T has invested more than one million research hours in speech and language technology over the past 20 years and they want to extend it to other forms of communication. How about turning your smart phone into a voice activated TV remote control? The AT&T lab is also working on humanizing the voice so that reading aloud or translating to different languages is not so creepy. In addition, the AT&T lab is working on using the camera feature on a mobile handset to recognize facial and other physical gestures, like lip reading, with the end goal of creating a sci-fi like “virtual agent that is with you all the time.” So the question remains; why am I still poking at this keyboard to write this blog?

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