She listens but doesn’t hear me at all
June 12, 2008 – 2:16 amOne of the many excellent features of The Awesome Minivan is that it has cutting-edge voice recognition command capabilities.
(minivans are so high-tech)
In theory, it works like this.
The driver pushes a button and states a command.
“XM radio on.”
As if by magic, the XM radio turns on.
When I learned about this feature, I was really excited. My minivan is on-par with Knight Rider. A talking car? How cool is that?
Only, as is too often the case with these types of new-fangled devices, the voice recognition is a little, shall we say, glitchy.
I say, “XM radio on,”
And the robot in the dashboard responds with a very confident, “High beams on!” and turns on my headlights to full brightness.
I look at Jay. “Seriously? That doesn’t sound at all like what I said!”
He shrugs.
I try again. “XM RADIO ON!” I shout.
(shouting works for people who don’t speak English, so it must work for car robots. Right?!)
“Passenger mirror defog!” responds my ever-so-helpful but rather misguided robot friend, and the mirror starts to heat up.
“NOOOOO!!!!!” I howl, “XM RADIO! ON!”
“I’m sorry, I do not understand. Please repeat your command.”
Apparently this robot wasn’t programmed to understand Hysterical.
I take a deep breath.
“Maybe you should try something else?” Jay suggests.
Ok, whatever.
I push the button and say VERY CLEARLY, “Change station to 103.7 FM.”
“GPS home position set to current location.”
I bang my head against the steering wheel. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! and somewhere in all the banging, my forehead hits the magic voice recognition button. WHAM! WHAM!
“XM Radio On!” shouts the robot.
And, as if by magic, my XM radio turns on.
If you’re feel like it, head on over to Seattle Mom Blogs and check out my latest Essential advice for new bloggers post in which I give many tips for Fitting blogging into your life without losing your mind, relationships, and waistline. Now if I could only figure out how to follow my own advice!
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By Stacy (mama-om) on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
In my secret life as a performance artist, I want to do a cutting edge installation of how people sound when talking to machines.
And I could include video of you banging your head on the steering wheel. :)
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By Yvie on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
One of the cons of technology is that it is only programmed to what it is told (the systems AI I mean). Anyway, I like the idea of a knightrider-like car too.
P.S. I really really enjoyed this entry of yours! Thanks for making me beam. :D
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By We are THAT Family on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
It’s another woman. She’s jealous.
Btw, you are fancy. Our minivan does squat.
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By Mamasphere on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Sounds like me and my blackberry!
Me: Call Tira
BB: Call Kara?
Me: No, call Tira
BB: Call Kara home?
Me: NO! CALL TIRA!
BB: Okay, calling kara home.
My sanity won’t let me use that feature anymore.
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By Rachel on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Rolling. I love that ‘Wham Wham’ gives you what you wanted.. should we call you ‘Bam Bam’ and hubs ‘pebbles’?
You’re so uber spiffy and yuppy’ish in your van. :-)
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By Mamma on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
So if you’re ever in an accident and your head hits the steering wheel you’ll be entertained by XM radio while you wait for the ambulance?
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By Jill on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
We just rented a car that has that same voice recognition capability. After finally figuring out how to use the darn thing… we also found out that it doesn’t recognize voice commands if the windows are open… that would have been nice to know before I listened to the Barbie CD for 1/2 hour w/o my kids.
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By Shannon on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
Love the graphic!
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By My Life My Life My Life on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
LOL…great, voice recognition recognizes self inflicted pain as ‘XM radio on!’…
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By KD-Pie on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
I miss the “Knight Rider” version of the Hoff.
I have On-Star and until you talk to the nice people you talk to the Robot in your car. Which doesn’t understand me, only my husband so…yeah.
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By Lisa on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
So now every time you want to radio on you need to practically give yourself a concussion first, eh? Who knew changing the radio station could be so painful?
Love the blogging segment you wrote on Seattle Moms. Am actually off to read about the optimization part now.
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By Pixie on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
Isn’t technology supposed to make life easier? Sometimes it seems like it’s more of a hassle…
But I wouldn’t give up my minivan! Glad to hear you’re (somewhat) enjoying it.
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By Aimeepalooza on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
That’s why I don’t have my voice command dialing up and running. I tried to use it and I’d say, “call Mom,” and it would call my friend Tiffany???
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By Rhiannon on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
Exactly why I do not use my voice activated dialing.
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By Chelsea on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
Does the voice have a slightly pompous British accent like KITT did? (and are you geeky enough to remember what KITT stood for?)
I could be worse. The Wham! Whamming! could direct the car to start playing “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.”
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By carrie on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
I can’t even figure out how the radio works, let alone my talking car.
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By Carrie on Jun 12, 2008 | Reply
Look- I’m post-stalking Carrie again!
Not the point though.
We had this problem with our GPS. Especially since my husband has a fairly thick accent. The GPS was just totally lost.
And my mom was using her voice-activated Blackberry thing one time, and said “phone home”. To which the voice-activated thingy (which always verified what you were asking for before doing it) said “did you say, phone sex”. Mom (who is the wife of a southern Baptist pastor) informed it that she did not say that, and then turned it off.
Modern technology is crazy!
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By SabrinaT on Jun 13, 2008 | Reply
ha ha ha! I am still waiting for auto-lock doors. My old FREE car is a 1990. I wonder if we can have the good stuff added?
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By Flea on Jun 14, 2008 | Reply
“Give me technology or give me death!”
Quick! Who said that? :)
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By Deeples on Jul 3, 2008 | Reply
Oh man… that’s the first time I can remember in months that I have laughed that hard out loud at a blog.
Kudos to you!
Deepless last blog post..You do not know everything there is to know.
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