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Old 5th Aug 2018, 2:07 am   #41
Biggles
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

I disagree with mobile calls being generally better quality than with landlines. Some of the mobile calls I receive are shockingly poor. I am beginning to wonder whether smartphone manufacturers are putting all their effort into smart features/gimmicks and the "bit that's left" is reserved for voice quality. I can't quite put my finger on it but anyone who is involved with digital comms will probably have experienced the sort of muffled, nondescript type of audio that can happen, which I personally find difficult to comprehend. It's as if some essential part of the audio is missing. It doesn't happen with landlines in my experience. We use a digital mobile radio net at work and when the signal is weak, it breaks up into a terrible dalek type of audio, instead of the occasional scratchy but still readable signal that the good old analogue system used to do.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 8:10 am   #42
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Anthropology and Smartphones!

The smartphone is a personal digital assistant/games machine. That it can also make telephone calls is a hangover from a distant past, rather like the human appendix.

It is crucially important that the antenna is located inside the device with no external clues to its presence. Under the infrequent circumstances when the user is actually using it to talk to anyone in real-time, they must not be reminded in any way that they are talking into a radio transmitter. Such thoughts would quickly result in anxiety attacks. Live speech is only going to be used when there is a degree of desperation involved - some type of emergency and the user is already somewhat panicky. Concerns that someone might be listening to one of their least inane messages could push them over the edge.

Fashion currently requires the phone to have a shiny metal shell with a large screen facing the user. The antenna must still be inside. The fear of thinking of radio transmitters (which spill secrets and fry brains) is still greater than the already large fear of appearing unfashionable.

So the antenna is screened in all directions except through the user's head, if it's held to the ear. The result is lousy range and an increased rate of brain damage, but these are acceptable. The lousy range is no problem because the infrastructure of the networks covers all the places these people go to... in fact it defines the places most people go. Areas of no coverage are no-go areas. Users stop safely at the edge of network coverage. If it extended any further, they'd be in danger of walking over cliffs, falling off mountain paths, meeting animals, or seeing unplanned scenery. Also, in these places there could be wind which would interfere with the function of a microphone which isn't allowed to be near the mouth.

The iPhone XIX will be implanted through a hole drilled in the skull. Atrophy will have made room for it. Users will spend a few periods of an hour each day with their heads inside a beautifully simplistically styled solenoid re-charging them. It won't be a problem because they don't want to get out much. virtual reality is where it's all at.

Food will be raised by farmers going about their fields with vintage Nokias in their pockets, at least until the 2.5G network gets shut down.

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Old 5th Aug 2018, 12:19 pm   #43
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

You only have to look at how mobile telephones are used to see why quality varies enormously. Some hold them horizontally in front of their mouth, as you would with a landline instrument. Some, as intended. Some people think that as the other person is some distance away they need to shout. Some "sotto voce" (polite and perfectly adequate). Then there are the now common hands free in-car installations, delays and more background noise. Compare that to an indoor conversation on a reasonable quality landline, probably without an audience.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 12:44 pm   #44
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

I have found speech quality variable with both systems, when it’s good it’s really good, when it’s bad it’s horrid.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 2:22 pm   #45
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Quote:
Under the infrequent circumstances when the user is actually using it to talk to anyone in real-time, they must not be reminded in any way that they are talking into a radio transmitter.
My sister was once astonished to be told that her 'phone' contained a radio transceiver (and, essentially, a computer). I asked her to show me the wires; then she understood why it has to contain a radio. This conversation started with her expressing surprise that something she had bought for £20 had to be insured for £200; how could a mere 'phone' be so expensive?

My understanding is that the original GSM (2G) speech quality was a compromise, and worse than landline (which is itself a compromise from an earlier era). Newer systems may be better, but often people are actually using 2G for voice even with a 4G phone. Transcoding from one system to another may degrade quality (that is a feature of lossy compression), so system P talking to system Q could be a bit worse than whichever is the worse of these two. Then throw in real-life problems in radio propagation in a changing multipath multi-transmitter environment and it is a wonder that mobiles work at all.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 3:32 pm   #46
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

I used to have to deal with a couple of people who liked to phone me with a brief during their commute. The quality of the hands-free audio was always so poor that I found comprehending what they were saying more than a strain. In actual fact if it went on for long I found it very tiring. There was the embarrassment of frequently asking them to repeat, and then resorting guesswork as to what they were saying for the rest. There was then the stress of wondering if my interpretation/guess was correct. I usually sent them 3s 4d* as, invariably, they were going to a dance.

* For younger readers this equates to a shade more than 18p.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 6:29 pm   #47
M0TGX Terry
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Since when did 3s 4d equate to 'a shade more than 18p"?
One decimal penny is 2.4 pre decimal ones, so 3s 4d =40d which is 40÷2.4 p = 16.67p
Anyone with a smartphone could easily check that. Try doing that on a landline phone
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 7:13 pm   #48
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Ah but could the smartphone explain the joke Terry
1.33p doesn't seem very much anyway.

Dave

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Old 5th Aug 2018, 8:35 pm   #49
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Good point Dave. I must resist the urge to be so pedantic.
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Old 5th Aug 2018, 9:15 pm   #50
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It's about time we had a like button!
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Old 6th Aug 2018, 9:47 am   #51
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Sorry, perhaps I should get a smart phone!

What is more annoying that I remember that around 1970 Practical Wireless was 3/6d and in the run up to decimalisation they put 17 1/2p in brackets alongside the Lsd price.

That'll teach me to try to do math in my head. Anyway, now you know why I never made it into anything to do with the electronics industry!
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Old 6th Aug 2018, 10:36 am   #52
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Slightly OT: Reading some of the replies in this thread reminds me of the short story "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster that my class was required to read in secondary school. Although it was written over 100 years ago before mass communication and technology it is amazingly and chillingly possible.

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Old 6th Aug 2018, 10:58 am   #53
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvistor View Post
I have found speech quality variable with both systems, when it’s good it’s really good, when it’s bad it’s horrid.
That's been my experience. I sometimes resort to a brief text message. Being such a tiny file, at least it will probably get through intact and can't be misinterpreted in the way a garbled voice can.
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Old 6th Aug 2018, 11:00 am   #54
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

As we are in a mobile black spot, we do still use our land line for calls at home. My kids bought me a basic smart phone for my birthday, but I still take my old basic (no camera) PAYG mobile with me when I go out: the display of the smart phone is pretty well impossible to read in bright sunlight. I don't know if I have hgh resistance skin, but I have great difficulty in getting any sort of touch screen to work unless I use a stylus. These days my extended family use Whatsapp for keeping up to date with events.

On the subject of the thread title, I remember in the 1990's having problems with navigating the automated exchange of a company in Texas. I had to put on my best imitation of a Texan drawl to get anywhere, such as saying "fow-wer" for "four".

Last edited by emeritus; 6th Aug 2018 at 11:14 am.
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Old 6th Aug 2018, 10:51 pm   #55
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Default Re: No Speech Recognition

I heartily agree about sunlight emeritus and have only just realised that touch screens rely on a certain "withheld" light touch that I wasn't managing to achieve.
As for the thread title, really I was being "too clever by arf". It's actually supposed to represent human beings losing the power of speech via messaging, not machine recognition or the lack of it but clearly doesn't work! My **** up there I'm afraid [post 38].

Dave
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