

Idea for killer mobile app? - newton
http://battellemedia.com/archives/004623.php

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maxklein
These are people who JUST DON'T GET IT. You see, texting is a completely
different form of communication.

~~~
jyothi
Exactly.

Moreover there are reasons why texting evolved as the popular application of
the underlying technology _SMS_ , which supports many other forms of
broadcasts. (including the killer idea)

Excerpt from Wikipedia

 _Most thought of SMS as providing a means to alert the individual mobile
user, for example, of a deposited voice mail, whereas others had more
sophisticated applications in their minds, such as telemetry. However, few
believed that SMS would be used as a means for sending text messages from one
mobile user to another._

Read on - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service>

~~~
maxklein
Exactly. The guy writing the article misunderstands why people send messages
with text. It has little to do with convenience, or because there is no
alternative to it - it's just a form of communication that many people like
for whatever reason. I won't make the same mistake and claim that I know why
others prefer texting sometimes, but personally, I use it when I want to make
a neutral query to someone, when I want to communicate with someone without
revealing the tone of my voice, when I want to give a person the opportunity
to ignore what I am saying or to delay a reply, etc.

Communication is wide and varied, and SMS is a choice in communication. Trying
to replace SMS with voice is like saying that one should replace email with
telephone calls. The applications are different, and people use it for a
different _type_ of communication.

~~~
ardit33
texting is a form of asynchronous communication who places the greater burden
to the sender who has to spend more time typing a message, while a phone call
can be faster.

But, text messaging is considerate to the receiver, as it lets the receiver
consume the message at their own time, while a call would have to interrupt
the person whatever they are doing.

Text is better in very noisy environments, bars/clubs/concerts.

In Europe at least, texting as always been a little bit cheaper than a phone
call, and the receiver usually doesn't pay for received messages.

~~~
maxklein
But it's more than just convenience. It's also the impersonal part of the text
that makes it so popular. You can write stuff in text messages that would be
wierd saying out loud.

Just like me writing this message to you - I can think about what I am
writing, revise it, etc.

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iloveyouocean
Already done. And successful enough to be acquired. Yet by no means 'killer'.

Rapid Messaging Service (RMS): <http://www.heyanita.com>

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oldgregg
I think Jott already does it as a premium service-- but who wants to call a
flippin phone number just to send a quick txt?! I've _heard_ there are some
people who swear by jott, but I think they are all old people because if you
are halfway competent with a smartphone it just seems like a pain in the ass.

You could try to port <http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/pocketsphinx/> to the
iphone...

Or even easier just stream the audio off to a sphinx-4 server and push the txt
results back to the phone in near-realtime for visual confirmation/correction
and sending. Very seamless for the end user and compensates for voice
recognition sketchy.

It would be interesting to then run the text through some kind of txt-speak
filter that would shrink the text. I'm always impressed by people who can cram
a small novel into 140 characters.

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schtog
Voice recognition would obv be very cool if it was instant and involed machine
tralsnation so you could talk in english and on the other end it comes out in
chinese(or whatever language you choose).

Also, some phones already have voice recognition, if minimal, right? You can
say a name and the appropriate person is called.

~~~
trezor
That is (as far as I know) only voice-matching. It matches the name you said
to whatever pre-recorded read in name you have assigned to a contact.

So it's not like it actually understands what you say, more that this input
"pretty much" matches this pre-recorded file.

There's a long way to from there to full, usable voice-recognition.

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trezor
So basically he thinks a killer idea is to 1. use a phone, 2. to do voice
recognition, 3. to send message as text, 4. to recipient which somehow will
get the same message read as if spoken originally.

So what he is saying that every phone should have voice recognition, voice
regeneration and blah blah. Colour me stupid, but for this purpose, why not,
you know, send a voiceclip over MMS or just make a damn call?

This is a hammer looking for a nail.

