Re: Telling HAL what to do...

[Steve Jensen <sjensen@mindspring.com>]

At 11:12 AM 11/22/98, you wrote:
>Now how about this for Vorsprung Durch Technic: Voice control for some of
>the most common functions in our cars!
>
>Need a switch (like a pilot's push-to-talk switch) to keep idle
>conversation from actuating the system, and a voice recognition system with
>a vocabulary of maybe 50 or so words. (Can this be done on a chip? or a
>Palm Pilot with Windows CE?)

Mike:

A few years ago I worked for a hospital equipment manufacturer who came out
with a voice actuation unit for their hospital beds.  Designed to help
recently injured quadripalegics and severe parapalegics become more self
sufficient.  You could raise or lower the bed (by saying "bed up"), raise
or lower the head section and/or the foot section, call the nurse, or dial
a phone number and talk thru the system when the call connected. Primarily
used in spinal or head trauma centers.

Pretty neat system, only took about 15 minutes to "train" the system to
recognize your voice.  Only drawback was that it cost about as much as a
fully loaded bed - about $5,000! - so they didn't sell a whole lot of them.
 Last time I visited the warehouse they had about 15-20 units sitting
collecting dust.

Oh, and the nurses used to get a kick out of it when we would train the
system to raise the bed by saying "booger".  Kind of funny to say "booger
booger booger" and watch the bed rise on the other side of the room!

If you are interested in more information on this setup, call the Hill-Rom
Co. at 1-800-445-3720 and ask for more info on the voice recognition units.
 They would probably sell you one at cost just to get it out of the warehouse.

MAC: put the fuel pump (with the good check valve) from my parts car into
my car today.  Much easier if you remove the spare tire and sit in the
spare tire well!

-Steve Jensen
87 5KCSTQ
88 5KCSTQ hangar queen, no fuelin'!!