You don’t really think much about it anymore – voice is just there. Today you are used to speaking to devices – tapping a microphone in an app, saying a wake word like Siri or Alexa, getting an increasingly smart response. No update required. Older adults appreciate it, according to a new research report. And who wouldn’t? Siri supports 21 languages, adding additions regularly. Amazon Alexa supports 9 today – and enables two languages at once if one of them is English. Amazon claims there are 600 million Alexa devices today, with at least 40 million in the US. Back in the day (2018), the spoken interface was called Voice First (as opposed to Mobile First.) It was an AI-enabled breakthrough for those who found typing difficult. Today we have smart auto correct, question clarification, expansion, do you want to know more?
For a child with a question – what time is sunset in China? Small children like to talk. Watching a five or seven-year-old shout a question at the Alexa device with no smartphone in hand – is remarkable. A smartphone can potentially be cluttered with ads, miscommunication and social media trash – a screen-free movement says children should not have one until at least 8th grade. But voice interactions are relatively pure – you speak, a device answers (hopefully with correct information).
Pure voice: the Tin Can Phone connects grandparents to grandchildren. The company, TinCan.kids, aims to reinvent the landline conversation for children – no screen, nothing but the spoken voice. The phone has a unique ring-tone, a twisty cord, comes in multiple colors, has a speaker phone so that two children can jabber at once. ‘Calling it screen-free tech for kids’ – the time is certainly now. No FaceTime, texting, pictures, accidentally found inappropriate websites – nothing but speech. For the long-distance grandfather, the ringing phone and conversation is beyond description. With a nearby Alexa device helping with tough questions like when is sunset in China, now that’s a real conversation.
