May 2007 - Posts

The Devil Uses Speech
Here's a hilarious video clip made by the Unified Communications team to give an idea how new UC technologies (including speech) will make work life easier. Video: Unified Communications Fortunately I don't have a boss like the one on The Devil Wears Read More...
Posted 24 May 07 05:53 by sprague | 0 Comments   
Who am I?
I've been playing with Oddcast's Sitepal for the past few months. How do you like me? Click on my mouth and make sure your sound is turned on. It was very easy to set this up. The site has an online editor that lets me pick any of a zillion personas (including Read More...
Posted 19 May 07 02:15 by sprague | 0 Comments   
Which headset do I use?
Marc asked me a question based on my recent post on how I use my headset instead of a phone. I just read your article about using your headset both as a telephone and speech recognition device. I agree with you, and I think more things will tend to shift Read More...
Posted 17 May 07 05:07 by sprague | 1 Comments   
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Speech at the CEO Summit
Bill Gates showed off lots of our technology at the CEO Summit yesterday. Read a transcript here , or watch the video online . Skip ahead about 20 minutes to watch the demos. That web cam conferencing part really works. I have been using it with our Portugal Read More...
Posted 17 May 07 07:08 by sprague | 0 Comments   
The devices we're up to
If you call my desk at work, this is the phone that will ring: Just announced today at WinHEC , it's one of a whole line of products from the Unified Communications devices team. It's plugged into my PC's USB jack and that's it. Look closely at the photo Read More...
Posted 14 May 07 08:08 by sprague | 0 Comments   
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Flying over Microsoft
Chuck Oppermann isn't just a speech PM; he's also a pilot. Yesterday after work he asked if anybody wanted to go flying, so of course I said yes. Here's a quick video I made of our flight. You can see the Mariners-Yankees baseball game, the Space Needle, Read More...
Posted 12 May 07 02:48 by sprague | 2 Comments   
Scoble thinks we're better than Google
Our in-house telephone switchboard is pretty nice, and Scoble compliments us by comparing it to the much more primitive one at Google. Incidentally, he doesn't point this out, but our switchboard is the same one currently shipping in Exchange 2007. So Read More...
Posted 10 May 07 01:52 by sprague | 7 Comments   
OneNote changed my life
I won't go as far as some of the people Chris Pratley mentions , but I am definitely turning into a OneNote heavy user. I tried OneNote 2003 several years back and could never make a go of it -- it just seemed too clunky, too limited, more pain than it Read More...
Posted 10 May 07 08:41 by sprague | 3 Comments   
Tellme is a Web 2.0 company
Take a look: after the Web 2.0 Expo , Webaware and News.com picked their top 5 Web 2.0 services from the conference: Tellme's downloadable 411 1 app was #1. Read More...
Posted 05 May 07 01:57 by sprague | 0 Comments   
It's official: Tellme is part of Microsoft!
Right on schedule , the deal is done and now we have a bunch of new colleagues. If you believe that 80% of companies by 2010 will integrate their phone/comms infrastructure, this is a big win for the teams working on the core speech technology that I Read More...
Posted 03 May 07 09:49 by sprague | 2 Comments   
Ray Kurzweil thinks Al Gore's movie is ludicrous
Speech people are always interesting and Ray Kurzweil is no different. The founder of one of the first commercial speech recognition companies, the guy who thinks the Singularity will happen in 2047, is never at loss for optimistic views of the future, Read More...
Posted 02 May 07 08:49 by sprague | 1 Comments   
Vista is more secure than Mac
Here's my prediction: a few years from now, people will still complain about Microsoft software but they won't complain about security problems. Every single man, woman, and child in a Microsoft engineering group is forced to attend SDL (Security Development Read More...
Posted 01 May 07 05:59 by sprague | 24 Comments   
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