So what are your expectations from the Linux engine(s) H4LF82?
What do I expect?
well, I suppose I expect the following...
let us take today as a bright shiny example. I have awakened after sleeping in late on my Sunday, and like most days, the curtains/shades are drawn to keep the mid-day light out, the lights are all off, and before I can see the screen on the computer I have just turned on, I must grab my "Solar Shields".
These I must place over my regular sunglasses.
once both pairs have been located in the dark and put on one over the other, I am ready to turn on the computer and check the news and my morning email while sipping a fresh cup of tea...
Honestly...I know how to turn the computer ON without witnessing the event with my own eyes, but the whole sunglasses ritual I could do without begins when I turn the machine on because the "Jesus Light" from the screen is illuminating the room, and I NEED the screen....
The sunglasses are necessary because without them I cannot see what needs clicking on said screen--I can click the reader to read out loud any news story that catches my interest, but before I can determine what story I want to play catch with, I have to know what they are about.
So, "Google News" is a fine example to use here.
On this typical Sunday, I want to check Google News to hear all about the tornadoes pummeling the "bubba belt". So I go to my computer, which is now on and online and running happily waiting for me, and i grab my mouse, squint my double-glazed eyes, and brace myself for the screen input so I can find the browser icon and click it. I open my eyes slightly.
immediately I am lashed in the face with laser-beams of all colors. Its like a camera flash rave party psychedelic strobe supernova at first, only more intense, and just as blinding and disorienting. Its a very fortunate thing I am sitting down. Beneath the glasses my eyes must slowly adjust to the relentless onslaught that is my computer monitor, and after a minute, they do relent ... slightly. I can finally see to discern the browser button, and I click it.
The browser opens and the Google homepage is displayed within 0.19 seconds in a burst of blues and yellows and reds and black glowing text. a quick lean into the screen to discern the word NEWS from all the others sprawled out there across the top of the page and I am ready to look at the news. Puppy responds like a dream. The page loads instantly. The speed is unexampled...
a quick scan of the front page tells me there is nothing about bubba-belt tornadoes, so I have to search. click the mouse into the search window, head down, glasses off, now we wait for our eyes to adjust back to the darkness to be able to see the keyboard again so I can type "bubba-belt".
"Now wait a minute!" you say..."cant you type without looking? Blind or not, its a basic computer skill, typing is."
Sure I can type without looking. the keyboard is in my lap, but the mouse is in my hand, and so only one hand is on the keyboard, sorta. the F and the J key both have little nubs on them to help me find them easily, but they are tiny nubs and easy to miss and I am fighting the big black dot now burned into my retina...
take a professional camera flash with new batteries and point it directly at your face, and flash it with your eyes open 3 inches from your nose over and over about 20 times and then try and tie your shoes or type your name....
...I dare you.
i either end up typing correctly, or else I end up typing something like 5708htnw9j3n wt708e crq0. because my fingers were in the wrong place.
bubba belt typed in, or at least 'i think' that is what it is, i must now put the glasses back on and brace myself for the visual onslaught that is the computer screen so that I can check the screen for the correct input and confirm that I did indeed just type what I think I just typed....
The TTS reader would read my keyboard input as I type it if I enabled that option, and one day I may have to, but having it on seems like having a duck with one leg swimming around in a circle, being only half of a two-part system; TTS and STT. and since I already have to open my eyes to click with the mouse anyway, it seems a little pointless. If only I could eliminate the need for the mouse...
so I
expect that STT will give me the option of saying "Open the Browser" and never needing the sunglasses on in the first place to click the icon...whereupon the browser can open and i can say "Go to Google News" and once again it can open the appropriate page without me ever having to see a thing. I would enable the TTS if this WERE the case so that I could have the audible confirmation that the computer was doing what I wanted. when i say "Open the Browser" I expect the TTS reader will say "opening Seamonkey Web Browser home page" and when i say "Go to Google News" then the TTS will confirm "opening Google news" and so on...
In this capacity, the TTS meta-morphs from an annoying little troll
that repeats useless information two seconds too late to be useful, and into a beautiful butterfly
that you depend on to guide you. I expect STT to be the left hand that TTS engine right hand has been trudging along without...a way for me to "speak" what I would otherwise need both hands planted firmly on the keyboard AND mouse for....
I understand that I will likely get something slightly less than what I expect, and I will have to make adjustments to fit my individual needs, but ultimately...that is where my expectations lay. Somewhere between "Thing from the Addams Family", and "The Invisible Man." One hand tied behind my back versus both hands out in front of me.
I expect to be able to drink my morning tea and read the news without playing up-wait-down-wait-up-wait-down-wait every 45 seconds with 2 pairs of sunglasses---at a minimum.
In a perfect example, I would expect to forgo the keyboard and mouse entirely just by saying click this, go there, play so-and-so, and so on....
So do you think I expect too much or are my expectations par for this course?