Microsoft Windows Vista demo goes bad

“It seems like Microsoft’s operating system presentations have a tendency to go awry. In a live product demonstration for a large group of Wall Street analysts, the company decided to show off Windows Vista’s speech recognition capabilities. As it turns out, the presentation, known as the Financial Analyst Meeting, was much more of a comedy rather than a professional demo,” Matt Mondok reports for Ars Technica.

Mondok reports, “It shows the presenter struggling to get Vista’s speech recognition software to cooperate. At one point, the presenter (Shanen Boettcher) said, ‘select all,’ and the software showed its violent side, writing ‘so double the killer delete select all.'”

Full article here.

Microsoft Vista Speech Demo Goes Bad:

Direct link to video via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV1kqthZf2g

[UPDATE: 7/29: 7:00pm EDT: Updated YouTube video links.]

98 Comments

  1. Have you tried Speech Recognition on your Mac’s Tiger OS lately?

    It’s incredible!! Apple vastly improved it!

    The Vista presenter blamed background noise for the problem. So, I flipped on my Mac’s Speech Recognition. I have a 15″ FP 800Mhz PPC G4. Not the most recent animal in the zoo and in terms of background noise, I have a box-type fan about 5 feet away sounding like a distant Cessna airplane and my TV has Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters” on at an average volume and about 10 feet away.

    Not only did Speech Recognition work, but it works MUCH better than I had expected from when I played with it two years ago.

  2. So? It’s not like OS X’s v.r works well!
    Dragon natural speaking works s hell of a lot better and it’s ten years old… Apple SUCKS in the V.R area!

    Those of you saying oterwise has probably not even tried D.N.S.!

  3. To answer Jooop’s question “What is “OTM” by the way?”:

    I believe it is CNBC’s “On the Money.” CNBC is part of MSN(!!) Money.

    Additional background, per MSN Money’s website: “On the Money,” hosted by Dylan Ratigan, is a nightly look at the world of money. Airing at 7 p.m. ET every weeknight, “On the Money” wraps up the day’s news from the world’s of business and everyday life…

  4. (So? It’s not like OS X’s v.r works well!
    Dragon natural speaking works s hell of a lot better and it’s ten years old… Apple SUCKS in the V.R area!

    Those of you saying oterwise has probably not even tried D.N.S.!)

    Nuance also sell VR for Mac, in fact the Mac version was first.

  5. Wouldn’t it be funny if Steve Jobs now chose to include a demo at WWDC of OS X’s speech recognition system ?

    He could make references to this failed demo and Microsoft’s excuses and then demonstrate how Apple’s voice recognition is properly designed to work in the real world, where ambient noise is to be expected.

  6. What a waste of time. I think that Microsoft ought to work more intently on recognizing malware and increasing security before they attempt to devote more time and resources on recognizing voice and converting verbal commands to text.

  7. Security Pro:

    The interpretation of a single reported account is meaningless without software documentation, quantifiable historical references of prior attacks, and directly comparing one web manager with another. As a “professional” you shouldn’t have to be told that the inherent insecurity of any website is quantified by the frequency, severity, and duration of malicious activity.

    Your observation lacks any real substance, provides no useful information, and is devoid of any rigorously scientific support. Remember, for there to be a true difference in security between Apple and Windows products you must avoid emphasizing what is obvious important and determine how to make the important obvious. If you want to insist that Apple software is as bad or worse than any other Windows-based program, you will have to work much harder to quantitatively and analytically develop your argument.

  8. Windows is a royal piece of sheet of a OS, mock it all you want. I don’t use it or care for it.

    But Mac OS X isn’t smelling too good security wise is my point.

    It’s 100% true that if today Windows and Mac OS X would suddenly
    switch market share that it would be Apple people hated because of security issues.

    Sad but true, and even sadder, is that Apple is quietly endorsing trusted computing as a
    excuse to make our machines more secure, using these exloits as a excuse. “see not even we are perfect”

    http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

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