Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Universal Whistling Machine - The Future Of Non-Verbal Communications
Canadian artists Marc Bohlen and J.T. Rinker want to change the way that you interact with your favorite electronic devices. Tired of tiny keyboards, poor speech recognition or incomprehensible interfaces? The Universal Whistling Machine is a step toward a non-verbal dialogue between man and machine. The device uses signal-processing to extract whistles from other sounds and exchange sounds with humans, each others and animals, building up a vocabulary of "phrases." Bohlen and Rinker shared a first prize award at the Art & Artificial Life International Competition in Madrid.
(From Bird Meets UWM 12mb)
On his website, Bohlen muses that whistling is a pre-verbal communcation form that is still in use in some parts of the world. The people of Gomera, in the Canary islands, use a whistling language to communicate between distant hilltops. He writes:
U.W.M is an investigation into the vexing problem of human-machine interface design. Whistling is much closer to the phoneme-less signal primitives compatible with digital machinery than the messy domain of spoken language. As opposed to pushing machines into engaging humans in spoken language, U.W.M. suggests we meet on a middle ground. Whistling occurs across all languages and cultures. All people have the capacity to whistle, though many do not whistle well. Lacking phonemes, whistling is a pre-language language, a candidate for a limited Esperanto of human-machine communication.
This is an interesting notion because one of the most successful pieces of consumer electronics, the original Palm PDA, is based on a similar idea applied to writing. Palm devices dispense with the keyboard, but they do not provide true handwriting recognition. Users scrawl on the screen with Graffiti, a set of symbols designed to be more easily read by computers. By meeting the PDA more than halfway, users had an effective subsitute for bulky (or unusable) keyboards.
Old-school hackers don't need to be convinced of the value of a good whistle. The Bell system phased out its human operators in favor of an automated system based on tones of set frequencies in the 1960's. According to hacker legend, a blind boy with perfect pitch figured out how to whistle up unlimited long distance calls.
Science fiction fans have long been fond of a robot that communicated with a series of whistles (and beeps). R2-D2 speaks a language that is very efficient, but which requires the services of a protocol droid for translation into human-understandable language.
If you are interested in other forms of voice recognition, take a look at the Phraselator P2, the most advanced handheld military-grade speech recognition and translation device available. If you're tired of Star Wars reruns, take a look at GRACE - A real robot that specializes in etiquette and protocol.
Thanks to an alert (but anonymous) reader for the idea and a hat-tip to WMMNA.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/8/2004)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Communication ")
Huawei Pura X Folding Phattie Phone
Why can't we get more innovative phone configurations?
Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.' Vernor Vinge, 1999.
Will Whales Be Our First Contact?
'He had piloted the Adastra to its first contact with the civilization of another solar system.' - Murray Leinster, 1935.
NYC/Dublin Portal Fails To Meet 'Guardian Of Forever' Standards
I am the Guardian of Forever.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
LLM 'Cognitive Core' Now Evolving
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars?
'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.'
Bacteria Turns Plastic Into Pain Relief? That Gives Me An Idea.
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
When Your Child's Best Friend Is An AI
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
China's Drone Mothership Can Carry 100 Drones
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
Drones Recharge In Mid-Air Like Jets Refuel!
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
Australian Authors Reject AI Training Of Llama
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
Is China Mining Helium-3 On The Moon's Farside?
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
