FEEDBACK HAS recently been watching snooker and soccer on TV, all in the interests of science, of course. The excuse is that there is no better way to check the state of play on voice recognition technology.
TV stations use voice recognition to subtitle live sports programmes for people who are deaf or hearing-impaired. The BBC has installed a system called ViaVoice from IBM, and during a recent snooker tournament it tried the brave experiment of directly displaying what the computer made of the commentators’ words. The result was hilarious nonsense, sometimes accidentally obscene. So the BBC has modified the system for the World Cup. Ahead of the games, trained staff teach the computer the names of the players and key phrases. Then, during the match, the computers “re-speak” whatever the commentators are saying.
Even with the re-speak trick, however, the subtitles can still be relied on to liven up a dull match. A Chinese player called Chen Yang came up as “were genuine” and “would showing”, with game tactics described as “a little blurred to the phase” and “my yard that will stop”. “Certainly signed” translated to “something late maligned up” and who knows what original words morphed into “dread crabs curling up the tower”?
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All credit to the broadcasters for doing their best under trying conditions, and those who cannot hear the sound are presumably grateful. But the next time someone tells you voice recognition is a mature technology, just sit them down to watch subtitles on live sports TV. Meanwhile, football-haters forced by partners or circumstances to watch the World Cup can always try switching on the subtitles to relieve the boredom.
A COLLEAGUE of Feedback’s recently had cause to visit London’s University College Hospital with a broken fibula. She was amused, despite her pain, to read on the wall: “The Fracture Clinic is not a walk-in clinic”.
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE isn’t all bad—at least, not for everyone all the time. The Glacier Dynamics Group at Ohio State University is a shining example of open-mindedness about this.
Visit them at www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/GDG/gdgfront.htm and see their page illustrated with a graphic of a submerged Statue of Liberty, reminiscent of the wonderful closing scene of the original Planet of the Apes. Click on the “About this graphic” link, and read: “Melting of polar ice sheets would raise global sea level and make statues more accessible.”
NOT EVEN hardcore dieters would go for this, surely? Advertising its unnamed product in The Mail on Sunday on 9 June, a company called Slimmer Society offers a “100 per cent weight loss guarantee”.
What does the product do? Vaporise the people who use it?
But don’t worry. With cheerful disregard for logic, the ad goes on: “If you’re not 100 per cent satisfied with the results and the ease of taking it”—perhaps because there’s still 5 per cent of you left—”simply return the unused [sic] product for a no-quibble, no-fuss immediate refund.”
MISREMEMBER or mistype the name of a popular but innocuous website, and you can find yourself somewhere entirely different. Often it’s somewhere not nearly as innocuous, because pornographers have taken to picking up popular typos for their Web addresses.
Other times it’s just, well, ever so slightly different. Boston politicians who are trying to lure the Democratic Party to have its 2004 presidential nominating convention in their city have opened a website at . But try and you will find something completely different—the website for the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention, whose guests of honour include Terry Pratchett. That one sounds like much more fun.
THE TROUBLE with instruction manuals is that they can be so large and heavy—so much so that the University of Sydney offers a course for staff entitled A Supervisor’s Guide to Safe Manual Handling.
Here’s the course description: “New South Wales Occupational 91ɫƬ and Safety legislation requires supervisors to identify, assess and control workplace hazards. One of these hazards is the risk of injury caused by manual handling activity. Find out how injuries occur, how they can be prevented, what your risk management responsibilities are and when to apply the University’s risk management procedures.”
Or could there be some ambiguity about what they’re referring to here?
THE COPY of Energise that arrived with reader Shane Voss’s bill from his electricity supplier npower told him: “We’re the biggest supplier of electricity by volume.” But they didn’t say what the conversion factor between kilowatt-hours and cubic metres is …
WHY DO plants matter? English Nature’s website has a botany page that lists all the reasons, pointing out that they “provide food for many different species including human beings, provide homes for many species, provide materials for people to use worldwide”, and so on. But it’s the last reason on the list that gives the game away. Plants, English Nature reminds us, “keep botanists in work”.
WE WONDER who was the lucky person who bought the “historic 1896 brick church building”, located at Fort Plain, New York state, up for sale on ebay (item 172804391). Whoever they were, we hope they don’t live outside the US. If they do, they’ll have to arrange to have the church delivered themselves. Under “shipping”, the page explains: “Will ship to United States only.”
FINALLY, a recent issue of the I Want One of Those catalogue features an advertisement for a “one-wheeled unicycle”. Presumably the next thing they’ll be selling will be a two-wheeled bicycle, followed, perhaps, by a three-wheeled tricycle.
