VEDICS Speech Assistant

[Tim Cross]

Eric S. Johansson writes:
 > On 5/22/2010 3:03 AM, Kenny Hitt wrote:
 > > Hi.
 > >
 > > On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 04:21:53PM -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote:
 > >> On 5/21/2010 11:04 AM, Nischal Rao wrote:
 > > <snip>
 > >
 > >>>
 > >>> Currently the software doesn't support the dictation facility. However,
 > >>> we are planning to add this feature in the future.
 > >>> The best part of this software is that it is speaker independent, no
 > >>> training is required and it can recognize words not present in the
 > >>> English dictionary.
 > >>>
 > >>> Currently it works well on ubuntu 9.10 and ubuntu 10.04
 > >>>
 > >>> You can find the source code at : http://sourceforge.net/projects/vedics/
 > >>
 > >> very nice.  have you thrown away your keyboard yet?  please do so and send a
 > >> message to the list without keyboard.
 > >>
 > > Before you post such a negative message, you should really read first.
 > > This is not even a stable tarball release yet.  The author stated clearly
 > > dictation wasn't available, but is planned to be added.
 > > If he had claimed that you could do dictation, your post would make since, but since
 > > he didn't, you look like a winy ass.
 > > When a project like this is still at such an early stage, bad attitude will cause a developer
 > > to wonder if the trouble is really worth it.
 > 
 > those who are unaware of history are doomed to repeat it... badly
 > 
 > This is about the 5th time I've seen this sort of project get started. I've seen 
 > every single commercial equivalent fail. I've watched people get excited over 
 > and over again thinking that at IVR level recognition engine can be used to 
 > replicate NaturallySpeaking functionality only to have their hopes crushed and 
 > energy wasted when they discover the two engine types are radically different.
 > 
 > This is not to say the project could be useful in a particular problem domain 
 > such as robotic control or command and control by telephone it's just that 
 > history shows that this idea has failed when applied to accessibility needs 
 > because the vast majority of speech recognition use by disabled person is the 
 > creation of text, not noodling around on the desktop. After all, what value does 
 > setting the font have when your hands won't let you type the text.
 > 
 > I've been involved in the Linux desktop recognition issue for a very long time. 
 >   I've had conversations with senior management at Dragon Systems (pre-buyout) 
 > on the market strategy (they still can't figure out how to make money in Linux 
 > today because it will only cannibalize the Windows market and depressed 
 > pricing). I've participated in the creation of a nonprofit focused on creating 
 > Linux desktop speech recognition systems and watched its dissolution because we 
 > couldn't get the technology and, we couldn't get sufficient technical support 
 > from the OSS community to build what was needed. They wanted to build something 
 > based on sphinx or Julius, both of which would not meet our needs. this opinion 
 > of suitability came from the developers of the SR engine projects.
 > 
 > If by being a whiny ass, you mean being a historian and making people aware of 
 > how they are wasting their time, unfairly raising people's hopes and building 
 > something for which they've not even studied the basic use case, then yes, I'll 
 > be a whiny ass.
 > 
 > Ever since I've been injured, I've been watching upper extremity disabled people 
 > jumping up and down, waving their hands or something that doesn't hurt as badly, 
 > saying "hey hey hey, we need help over here!"  unfortunately, the people who can 
 > write code are somewhere else saying "this should be useful because we know how 
 > to write this code." End result being being we get nothing we can use and 
 > developers think we are a bunch of ungrateful shits because we don't think their 
 > projects are wonderful.
 > 
 > A further bit of insanity comes when someone asks for help integrating an 
 > open-source program (Emacs via VR-mode) to work with NaturallySpeaking. If we 
 > get a response, it's frequently "we can't do that, it would encourage people to 
 > use proprietary software". Head-desk. There seems to be a blind spot recognizing 
 > that what it takes to make a good speech user interface is complex, in many ways 
 > far more complex than almost all accessibility interfaces put together. Speech 
 > UIs really any need to be built at first and let the recognition engine come 
 > second or third in your priority list because the first priority should be 
 > making an environment work for speech recognition users.
 > 
 > a related winey ass bit is that I've got ideas for speech UIs, I can't implement 
 > them because my hands are broken. I need someone to be a coding Buddy to work 
 > with as a team (two minds, one set of hands) to bring my ideas to fruition and 
 > find them solve the problems with them. This pair problem is also one of the 
 > reasons why speech recognition users have made so little progress improving 
 > their own lot over the past decade. We can't find developers with hands who are 
 > willing to truly listen to us. As result, we pick out code slowly and with lots 
 > of errors and sometimes, it just gets to be too much, too exhausting and 
 > projects fall by the wayside.
 > 
 > hopefully this is my last whiny ass bit. OSS is nice, OSS should be added 
 > incrementally but if the ideology gets in the way of people being able to make 
 > money, to live independently then it should be sidelined until it no longer gets 
 > in the way.  Otherwise, why should you bother with accessibility at all?
 > 
 > 
 > > One note to those people who have recently started to get a ubuntu accessibility group going again:
 > > you really need to subscribe to gnome-accessibility.  All the developments in accessibility are happening
 > > in upstream gnome and not ubuntu.
 > > There was a more complete discussion about this particular app on gnome-accessibility.
 > 
 > do you have a URL to the archives or a rough of conversation time so I can take 
 > a look?
 > 

Hi Eric,

while I can appreciate the frustration you express in your posts, I have to
agree with Kenny on this one. Your points regarding history being repeated etc
mayb e valid. However, you made no reference to any of the points you later
expanded upon in your original post. As Kenny points out, you didn't even
acknowledge what the OP stated as the limitations in their system. I suspect
you didn't even look into it any further than that simple introductory post.
Your response was flippent and negative. 

The issues you raise are real and complex. They are going to be difficult to
resolve and ther are almost certainly going to be many failures before we have
some success. I suspect you are correct in that many with the technical skills
don't understand the underlying issues well and frustratingly, we are destined
to see the same mistakes being made. I believe this is because the problem is
generally not well understood and as a consequnce, the outcomes are less than
we would hope. However, I also feel that this is part of the process and it
very much mirrors developments in other areas. Frequently, we learn more from
our failures than we do from our successes. A frustrating part of software
development is that, unlike the real sciences, we don't document and publish
our failures. If we did, maybe the forward progress would be better. 

I also disagree with the view/belief that ignorance of history always means
that the same mistakes are just repeated. Sometimes, ignorance of history
results in fresh new approaches that find a solution. In some cases, awareness
of history can have negative impact as well. It tends to constrain/define the
approaches taken. In computing in particular, there have been a number of
great advances made by people who did not come from a computing background,
who were not aware of past history and attempts. In some cases, they did
things that those who were more aware of the past and informed about the
technology had already discounted because of their past experiences or because
of theoretical limitations. In fact, this is a frequent pattern in many areas.
Consider where we would be now if the Wright brothers had just looked at the
past history of our attempts to fly!

We should be aware of past history and we should try to learn from it.
However, we also need to be balanced and sometimes, we just need to have a go.
We may well fail, thats not the issue. What we need to do is pick ourselves up
again after the failure, learn fromt he experiences and try again. 

I also have a very different view to yours regarding OSS. I don't see OSS as
some separate culture or group. OSS is only an ideology and you cannot give up
that ideology for expedience. Doing so means you end up with something else
completely. It is true that adopting such an ideology can make some things
more difficult and it is true that it will impose different limits or
constraints. However, you adopt the ideology because you believe that in the
end, the results will be, on the whole, better. However, I also think its a
bit like religion. Its not for everyone and there are many different forms.
Some people will get great comfort and inspiration from it, othes will not.
For those who find it beneficial, great, for those who don't, great. 

The example you give regarding emacs and VR is a limited perspective. Write
now, I'm writing to you using emacspeak, which also uses proprietary software.
While we would not be able to get emacspeak bundled into emacs and while many
hard core OSS developrs would not work on it because of this, it has not
stopped its development and use. Likewise, finding new profitable business
models that are self-sustaining is difficult because you really do need to
approach things from a very different perspective, its not impossible and
there are a growing number of successful businesses built on top of OSS. You
and I may not be able to define or recognise such business models, but that
does not mean it is impossible. Likewise, Dragon may have difficulty at the
moment in recognising how to make their products profitable on the Linux
platform, but that does not mean it cannot be done. Take a look at Oracle for
an example of a company that is successful and has successfully moved their
product to being supported under Linux. As I mentioned in an earlier post,
often, companies are just not in a position to recognise the potentials of
either OSS or supporting their product on other platforms. They may never do
this or they may have a strategic change next week.

As I've mentioned before, in OSS and I believe in the areas of adaptive
technology, we need to scratch our own itch. Often when I say this, the
response comes back that the individual doesn't have the technical skill, the
time or cannot do it because of their disability. I think this is just a total
cop out. There are many ways of helping to scratch your own itch. Even just
getting the issues out ther in front of people is a start. Yes, it might take
me longer to code the program because of my disability, but maybe the result
will be better because of my close association and understanding or simply
because it more precisely scratches my own individual itch. My strength lies
in programming. I would be less successful in other areas, such as convincing
a commercial entity into porting their product to Linux, supporting an OSS
project or raising awareness of the issues amongst others. We all have skills
and ways to contribute. The tricky part is recognising what our skills really
are and how they can be applied. 

I disagree with your assessment that you cannot do much because of your
disability. You have mentioned you need someone to code because you cannot due
to your injuries. Yet, you are able to write these messages. If you can write
an email, then why can you not write code? I recognise it may be slow and/or
it may be difficult, but as you have demonstrated the ability to write
reasonably long emails, you could put that effort into writing code as well.
I'm not saying it is easy, but it would be the best way to get what *you* want
- at least better than waiting for someone else to do it for you. Maybe coding
isn't the best way for you to contribute. Maybe it is design, or lobbying, or
testing, or .......

You mentioned that you have lots of good ideas and indicate you even know how
to solve some of the issues, but need someone to help you code. Maybe this
would be easier to do if you document, plan and design what you want done.
Maybe someone looking for a project will see it and think your ideas are
interesting. Maybe others will have some suggestions and improvements to make
or maybe someone out there is already working on similar ideas. The point is,
get it down and out of your head and then in front of people and you are
likely to get more real progress than is currently occuring. 

For example, if you had a clearly defined project, maybe it wold be possible
to find participants to work on it as part of the next Google Summer of Code?
Maybe someone will pick it up as part of a reserach or teaching project or
maybe you will write it up in such a way that it inspires somoene to
contribute, support or fund. 

I am quite sure there will be other reasons you can point out to why this still
won't work and maybe many of them are valid. I don't know the precise
circumstances you find yourself in and I'm not trying to be 'nasty' or overly
critical. However, in all your posts I've seen so far, essentially all that
has come across has been very winy and negative assessments of why it is all
no good. You have indicated that you know of things that can be done to
improve matters, but not provided anything of any real substance. Write your
ideas up, put them on a web page and then start asking people for input and
feedback. To make things change, you have to generate some interest and some
motivation. Nobody is going to be as motivated to address the limitations you
face as much as you are. If your not able to get motivated enough to change
the situation, it is very unlikely anyone else will. 

This will probably come across as harsh, I don't mean it to be, but believe it
needs to be said. Much of what you have written is true and it is obvious that
you are frustrated. I'd even go so far as to say there is a strong element of
negativity and some underlying anger in what you have written. There
is also an element of 'hopelessness'. Parts of it even come across a little
bitter and can sound like being resigned to be a victim. I know this feeling
and I know how hard it can be to not let the frustrations, lack of change and
feelings of injustice become all encompassing. I sincerely hope this is just a
temprary downswing. Possibly there is just a need to vent a little to reduce
the pressure - I get that and I've been there. An old boss of mine you to say
that on some days, all you can do is hold the line. Thats fine. What we need
to do is recongise when things are like this and acknowledge there are times
we probably just need to let things go. 

At the end of the day, much of what you have written is true and all to
familiar to all of us with a reliance on adaptive technology. It hasn't added
anything new. This is possibly my main issue with what you have posted. From
what you have written, it is apparent you have considerable first hand
knowledge and experience in the VR field. Unfortunately, there is little of
substance that could be used to either move things forward or assist others in
avoiding some of the pitfalls. This is a pity. 

Perhaps the question to ask is how can we change things. What can we do as
individuals to improve the situation. If you have ideas I'd strongly recommend
putting them up on a website and then post to the various lists asking others
to read and provide input/feedback. While this will almost certainly not
result in any great fundamental change, it may just provide the inspiration or
prevent/reduce wasted effort. If we don't want history to be repeated, it
needs to be documented and accessible. Of course, we all also need to
recognise that sometimes our abilities to communicate and motivate also fail,
so try not to be discouraged if initial responses are poor or there appears to
be little interest or acknowledgement. Instead, adapt and try again. The
important things are never easy and we rarely succeed initially. We need to
have confidence and belief in what we are doing and kee pushing forward. 

regards,

Tim

-- 
Tim Cross
tcross at rapttech.com.au

There are two types of people in IT - those who do not manage what they 
understand and those who do not understand what they manage.
-- 
Tim Cross
tcross at rapttech.com.au

There are two types of people in IT - those who do not manage what they 
understand and those who do not understand what they manage.