The speech wars are on. Apple is pretending the iPhone is the first device ever to do speech recognition, and Google is pretending they didn’t know Apple was doing that. Even though it’s been around for a couple of decades, the “new” gimmick is to not only have the computer understand the speech, but also understand the meaning and come up with reasonable (or at least occasionally hilarious) responses. This kind of technology was pioneered at Bell Labs in the 80′s, and demonstrated with the help of none other than Penn & Teller – as a hoax. The target was Bell Labs research Vice President and Nobel laureate Arno Penzias. Basically, they sucked Arno into believing that he could ask the computer interview questions, and the computer would select and play back an appropriate clip from Penn & Teller’s recent appearance on David Letterman. In reality, Penn & Teller were in the next room, feeding hilariously off-base answers in real time to a video camera. Hit the jump for the video they made of the incident and a full account by Dennis Ritchie. (Warning: late 80′s VHS quality)
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/labscam.html
Rest In Peace, dmr.