How a seedpod led to $400,000 bail and eight felony charges
Posted on 08 February 2012 by @kevin_seal
“I always wear a rainbow-colored scarf,” said 65-year-old grandmother Sweet Grass Longhouse over the phone. “That’s how you’ll know it’s me.”
It was Sweet Grass’s first time attending a General Assembly of Occupy Oakland, and as she approached the group that gathered before the Sunday afternoon GA at 19th and Telegraph, she wrapped both of her hands around a large paper pad. At the top of the pad, she had taped a photograph of her arrested son. Her left hand also held two small seedpods.
She greeted the group with a broad smile, asking if it was an appropriate time to explain her son’s situation. With more than 400 people having been arrested eight days earlier, there were many such stories vying for attention – citizens rounded up and sent to the jail at Santa Rita, protesters with zip-tied hands and unclear charges being leveled against them.
Her story begins in a similar way to many stories from January 28. She and her son, Govinda, arrived at 14th and Broadway a little before noon, read a few informational handouts, and listened to the speakers at the plaza. One of the protesters offered Sweet Grass and Govinda a pair of bandannas, for use in the likely event that the police would deploy tear gas. Sweet Grass had her long rainbow scarf to cover her nose and mouth, but Govinda had no such cover. He said “thanks,” accepted a black bandanna, and joined the group as the march began heading east across downtown Oakland.
“The march felt tense,” said Sweet Grass. “There was a different vibe in the crowd, a concerned vibe.”
Sweet Grass stayed with the group until 12th and Oak, and then decided to head home. Govinda gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and told her that he planned to answer a request that the sound truck had just announced, to protect the bus at the march’s end. Sweet Grass then walked to the Lake Merritt BART station and headed back to her home on the Berkeley / North Oakland border.
45 minutes later, the police arrested Govinda.
Here’s what happened in the meantime: he walked to the retaining wall at Laney College, directly across from where the fence had just come down. Looking at the front of Laney, this would be the “right” end of the fence, close to the intersection of 10th and Oak. He met two girls there, and joked with them, “The police threw tear gas. I just have these.” And in his hand he had a cluster of seedpods – the dark brown, lightweight, spherical type of seed-holders that fall from sweetgum trees.
As the police hurled tear-gas canisters into the crowd, Govinda threw these one-inch-round seed pods at the line of shielded riot cops.
(pictured: Govinda.)
“It would have been like throwing popcorn,” said Sweet Grass. “They hardly weigh anything, and can’t travel very far.”
For this gesture, Govinda is facing eight felony charges. None of the seedpods had made contact with an officer, but eight officers “felt assaulted.” Each of the eight wrote up a separate felony indictment for the same act, along with a misdemeanor charge for wearing a black bandanna around his head.
Officers refused to identify themselves on paper, choosing instead to sign each individual citation as “John Doe.” An officer has written across each indictment form the word “SERIOUS.”
“Where’s the evidence? Where’s the accuser? There’s something so rotten in Denmark in this,” Sweet Grass said.
The bail resulting from these eight felony charges has been set at $50,000 each. All told, that leaves the bail for Govinda – whose full name is Ahimsa Govinda Wind-Thunder – at a staggering $400,000. Eight separate charges for the same accusation.
“Govinda never scooped up anything from the ground,” said Sweet Grass. “My other son went back to that exact spot, and there are no rocks or stones on the ground there anyway, just these little seedpods from the tree. There were thousands of these seedpods. The one thing that wasn’t there were rocks or stones.”
Govinda is a tall guy, standing six feet six inches. He is also, by his mother’s account, never one to be intimidated by lines of heavily armed riot cops.
“I do know that Govinda would run up to the police – because I was with him on tons of these marches in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland,” said Sweet Grass. “He’d run up with his little cell phone and be taking pictures with his cell phone and tell them, ‘I’m getting you all on camera.’ So he was a taunter. He never carried a weapon. In all these marches we’ve been on, I never saw his stoop down to look for something. He is a young man with that testosterone bravado. He thinks of himself as somebody who is standing up to oppressive forces.”
(pictured: Sweet Grass Longhouse)
According to Sweet Grass, the police had begun targeting Govinda prior to this march. For several years, he had moved his car to a lot on Fridays to avoid street cleanings; just in the past month, he received several parking tickets for this act, after years without a single ticket.
Last week, he came out of his house, and there were two police cars parked directly in front of his residence.
“He got into his car, drove to the corner, and those lights on both cop cars lit up. He pulled to the curb, and the first thing they did was give him a ticket for not using his blinker,” explained Sweet Grass. “Because there was a car parked on that side of the street, and he didn’t want to block traffic, that put his fender over the crosswalk, so he got a second hit for not stopping at the stop sign. This is what we mean about being targeted. They were waiting for him, and got him within a block of his house. It seems bizarre.”
More disturbingly, police knew Govinda’s name and precise street address, and confronted him with this information when he showed up an Occupy Cal rally.
“A call had come out that the police were going to surround a Berkeley student event, so he went out there to give support. He went out there after work, at around 10 or 11, and an Oakland policeman came up to him and said, ‘Govinda, what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at 710 25th Street in Oakland.’ They had already identified Govinda,” said Sweet Grass. “He’d never been arrested. He doesn’t have any police record. It’s not like he’s been a cause celebre in Oakland prior to joining the Occupy movement. But he felt very targeted there.”
Sweet Grass describes her son as being very strong and very supportive. The family suffered a tragedy five years ago, and Govinda had helped the rest of the family deal with the grief and the loss.
In April of 2007, Govinda’s nephew, Canon Christian Jones II, was an 18-year-old freshman at Tuskegee Institute, the historic black university in eastern Alabama. Canon, a graduate of Berkeley High School, was one week away from moving back to California. He was transferring back to be closer to his family and friends.
One Sunday night, he walked off campus to a convenience store. On the way, two other 18-year-olds, Quentin Davis and Romanita Cloud, held him up at gunpoint. When Romanita accidentally called Quentin by name, the young man panicked, and fearing Canon would identify him, he shot Canon in the head.
Canon’s murder tore through the communities of Berkeley and Richmond. He was a respected and much loved leader in Berkeley High’s Communication, Arts and Science program. One report from the time describes staff and teachers at Berkeley’s King Middle School bursting into tears when they heard of Canon’s death. Nowhere did this news hit harder, though, than with the family.
(pictured: Canon Jones II, 1988-2007)
Govinda, who was 27 at the time of his nephew’s murder, stepped up and provided emotional support to his brother and to the rest of the family. Now, his brother’s family and his mother are doing everything they can to ensure Govinda can return to freedom.
“He’s been in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day,” said Sweet Grass. “He’s at the Oakland jail, in maximum security. I got to him see once, last Thursday. They had him shackled to bring him in. God willing, I’ll see him this Thursday.”
Govinda had his pre-trial hearing this morning, and all involved hope that these eight felony charges will all be dropped. Sweet Grass also hopes that the two young women Govinda showed the seedpods to might also step forward and testify on his behalf.
“He seemed amazingly strong,” Sweet Grass reported. “He said, ‘Give love and thanks to everyone who is sending me support. Tell them my chin is up. I’m a political prisoner, and they have not taken me down.’ He is very focused. He needs to be able to get through 23 hours of sitting in a room. He told me he has done 1,000 jumping jacks, so he’s already begun to understand that you have to create a world for yourself inside that six-by-nine cell.”
If you have any information that could help Govinda’s case, please contact Sweet Grass Longhouse at grammagrass@yahoo.com or the attorney, Howard Williams, at howard@lieberlaw.com . If you would like to add your name to the online support for him, here is a Change.org petition to convince the Oakland District Attorney’s office to drop the charges against Govinda.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
How a seedpod led to $400,000 bail and eight felony charges | #OccupyOakland Media
Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story - Businessweek
Icelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story
February 20, 2012, 7:22 PM ESTMore From Businessweek
- Hedge Funds Boost Bullish Wagers to Five-Month High: Commodities
- Merkel as Debt Crisis Iron Lady Bucks German Street on Greek Aid
- Greece Moves to Second Bailout as Default Risk Spooks Europe
- Lehman Crisis Veterans Say EU Shouldn’t Push Greece Too Far
- ECB Said to Negotiate With Greece on Investment Portfolio Bonds
By Omar R. Valdimarsson
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.
Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.
“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”
The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.
The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.
Crisis Lessons
“The lesson to be learned from Iceland’s crisis is that if other countries think it’s necessary to write down debts, they should look at how successful the 110 percent agreement was here,” said Thorolfur Matthiasson, an economics professor at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, in an interview. “It’s the broadest agreement that’s been undertaken.”
Without the relief, homeowners would have buckled under the weight of their loans after the ratio of debt to incomes surged to 240 percent in 2008, Matthiasson said.
Iceland’s $13 billion economy, which shrank 6.7 percent in 2009, grew 2.9 percent last year and will expand 2.4 percent this year and next, the Paris-based OECD estimates. The euro area will grow 0.2 percent this year and the OECD area will expand 1.6 percent, according to November estimates.
Housing, measured as a subcomponent in the consumer price index, is now only about 3 percent below values in September 2008, just before the collapse. Fitch Ratings last week raised Iceland to investment grade, with a stable outlook, and said the island’s “unorthodox crisis policy response has succeeded.”
People Vs Markets
Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn.
Once it became clear back in October 2008 that the island’s banks were beyond saving, the government stepped in, ring-fenced the domestic accounts, and left international creditors in the lurch. The central bank imposed capital controls to halt the ensuing sell-off of the krona and new state-controlled banks were created from the remnants of the lenders that failed.
Activists say the banks should go even further in their debt relief. Andrea J. Olafsdottir, chairman of the Icelandic Homes Coalition, said she doubts the numbers provided by the banks are reliable.
“There are indications that some of the financial institutions in question haven’t lost a penny with the measures that they’ve undertaken,” she said.
Fresh Demands
According to Kristjan Kristjansson, a spokesman for Landsbankinn hf, the amount written off by the banks is probably larger than the 196.4 billion kronur ($1.6 billion) that the Financial Services Association estimates, since that figure only includes debt relief required by the courts or the government.
“There are still a lot of people facing difficulties; at the same time there are a lot of people doing fine,” Kristjansson said. “It’s nearly impossible to say when enough is enough; alongside every measure that is taken, there are fresh demands for further action.”
As a precursor to the global Occupy Wall Street movement and austerity protests across Europe, Icelanders took to the streets after the economic collapse in 2008. Protests escalated in early 2009, forcing police to use teargas to disperse crowds throwing rocks at parliament and the offices of then Prime Minister Geir Haarde. Parliament is still deciding whether to press ahead with an indictment that was brought against him in September 2009 for his role in the crisis.
A new coalition, led by Social Democrat Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, was voted into office in early 2009. The authorities are now investigating most of the main protagonists of the banking meltdown.
Legal Aftermath
Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.
Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.
That compares with the U.S., where no top bank executives have faced criminal prosecution for their roles in the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Securities and Exchange Commission said last year it had sanctioned 39 senior officers for conduct related to the housing market meltdown.
The U.S. subprime crisis sent home prices plunging 33 percent from a 2006 peak. While households there don’t face the same degree of debt relief as that pushed through in Iceland, President Barack Obama this month proposed plans to expand loan modifications, including some principal reductions.
According to Christensen at Danske Bank, “the bottom line is that if households are insolvent, then the banks just have to go along with it, regardless of the interests of the banks.”
--Editors: Jonas Bergman, Tasneem Brogger.
To contact the reporter on this story: Omar R. Valdimarsson in Reykjavik valdimarsson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonas Bergman at jbergman@bloomberg.net
Monday, 20 February 2012
Single-atom transistor beats Moore's Law by eight years (Wired UK)
Single-atom transistor beats Moore's Law by eight years
20 February 12
Leave a commentMoore's law dictates that every two years, the number of components squeezed onto an integrated circuit will double. To fit it all in, transistors will have to shrink to the size of single atoms by the year 2020.
But microengineers at the University of New South Wales think they're well ahead of schedule, after making a working transistor that consists of a single phosphorus atom, placed precisely in a silicon crystal.
Single-atom transistors have been made before, but with a margin of error of around ten nanometres. Researchers also have to search through many devices, or tune multi-atom devices to isolate one that works.
"But this device is perfect", says Professor Michelle Simmons, director of the ARC Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW. "This is the first time anyone has shown control of a single atom in a substrate with this level of precise accuracy."
The device consists of an individual atom placed between atomic-scale electrodes and electrostatic control gates. The microscopic device even has tiny visible markers etched onto its surface so engineers can connect metal contacts and apply a voltage.
To make it, the team popped a crystal inside an ultra-high vacuum chamber and then used a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) to manipulate individual atoms. They placed phosphorus atoms on the crystal then covered them with a layer of hydrogen
Select hydrogen atoms were then removed with the metal tip of the microscope, and a controlled chemical reaction incorporated phosphorus atoms into the silicon surface. Finally, the structure was coated in silicon, and metallic connects were attached.
Transistors are semiconductor devices which can amplify and switch electronic signals when current is applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals. They're a fundamental part of almost all electronic devices.
When they're made at this size, not only can you get more processing power from a tiny chip, but they could be used to build a quantum computer: one that uses the various phenomena of quantum mechanics -- superposition and entanglement and so on -- to perform calculations much faster.
7 days living with...voice control - Pocket-lint
7 days living with...voice control
Talking shop
20 February 2012 11:10 GMT / By Jamie Carter
‘These aren't the droids you're looking for, move along.’ No, not that type of voice control – we’re talking artificially intelligent gadgets rather than Jedi mind tricks here.
The tech developers of the world would have us believe that dictation software is pretty polished. We’re all packing smartphones with Siri, Android voice commands and all sorts of other speak-and-spell apps, and we’re told that the next generation of smart TVs and games consoles will be voice activated and, indeed, some already are.
So, for me, a journalist with a slight fear of creeping tendinitis, I should really give it a try but is it up to scratch enough for me to get through a working week? Here is how it unfolded with my 7 days with voice control.
Day 1
It’s 9am - time to boil some eggs for breakfast. I boil the water, dunk the eggs and pick-up my iPhone 4S.
“Set alarm for four minutes,” I tell Siri.
“Alarm set for 09:02,” it replies.
That's not what I asked. I try again. It persists, this time (am I imagining it?) rubbing it in.
“Alarm set for 09:02 - pretty soon!”
My eggs have now been boiling for about a minute, so I quickly return to old (ish) ways by firing-up the built-in Clock app. Not a good start. ‘Set timer’ is what I should have, said, it turns out. Doh!
Time to do some writing, err, speaking. I've already loaded Dragon Dictation for Mac 2.5 onto my ageing iMac in readiness for this week. It took about 15 minutes in which I had to read a few passages of text on the screen while the software got used to my voice. I don the headset and feel like I'm in a call centre.
After opening a Word document, I start dictating a TV review from some notes made the previous day. The hardest thing to get used to is punctuation COMMA which has to be voiced SEMI-COLON it just doesn't seem natural at all FULL STOP. In my debut opening paragraph there is just one error, ‘remotely’ transcribed as ‘the mostly’. Wow.
With straight text, this stunning success rate doesn't last. For starters I can’t seem to spell-out ‘per cent’; first, second and third always appear as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd; ‘via’ comes out only as ‘wire’ and ‘fire’ unless I pronounce it ‘vee-a’ and brand names aren't always recognised. I attempt to compare a TV with a Samsung model, but ‘some sun’ and ‘Saint-Saëns’ is all that comes out. I utter the ‘scratch that’ instruction for the first time, which instantly wipes what’s just been transcribed. Where's my keyboard?
Later that day, I walk to the swimming pool, and have an idea for a feature. Usually when this happens, I stop walking, and send myself a quick email, but instead I attempt to dictate into the Note-taking app. I press the microphone icon to engage Siri, but wait until some passers-by are behind me until I start speaking. It takes at least 30 seconds before producing anything, and although it gets the words spot-on, it doesn't appear to understand punctuation. I love punctuation, but I hate talking to gadgets in public places. It’s all very weird.Day 2
Siri’s accuracy yesterday persuades me to give it go for emails, so I check, and start replying to my inbox while I’m still in bed. It goes smoothly. I discover that the punctuation - ‘new line’, ‘comma’ etc - in Mail are the same as I’ve been using for Dragon, and I get through five or six emails before work. It doesn't save me any time though, and I realise I’ve ruined the one sanctuary I had. I decide only to use Siri for dictation in dead time, and later on reply to an email while waiting for the kettle to boil. Much better.
Today I have a lot of research to do, and that means hitting Google. Usually it’s a frantic copy and pasting of product model numbers - the scourge of any tech journalist - but today it’s different since I’ve decided to perform every Google search with my voice. Cripes.
I try ‘Toshiba 40RL868 price’. Amazingly, Google hears me correctly and within one click I’m on a dealer’s website with the latest price showing. Brilliant. My next task is to find out some background about Songdo, a newly built ‘smart city’ in South Korea, for another tech feature I’m working on. Here goes.‘Songdo South Korea’ elicits the rather amusing search terms ‘Syndrome’, ‘Condos’ and ‘Phone died South Korea’ before I give up and have to type-in the name using the virtual keyboard. Some definite limitations here.
Tonight I’m going out with some friends, but need to check on the exact location. Google’s app answers the question ‘where is the Aneurin Bevan Pub Cardiff’ by directing me to… ironmaiden.com, providing search results for ‘when are Bedford Park’ and ‘cameron bergen park’. Google doesn't know where I am, so can't cross reference anything with what's around me, but that's not the main problem here - it has no idea what I'm talking about.
Once at the pub, I use the purest type of voice control to order a round of beers. While standing at the bar an email comes through that only needs a short reply, but I can’t muster the courage to reply by voice. Not in a pub. If they didn't chuck me out, I'd leave in disgust. More limitations, it seems.
Day 3
Up early today and actually rather excited about the speed at which I'm beginning to produce features. Maybe if I can get today's writing done by lunchtime I can have the afternoon off?
After reminding myself to slow down while speaking, for the benefit of both Dragon and the Google app on my iPhone, a feature is finished by 11 o'clock. However, instead of quitting work for the week I decide to investigate Dragon’s other dimension - Commands - which I haven't yet had time to learn.
I notice that one of my reviews has just been published online, and I decide to Tweet it. I link it to my Twitter account @jamieacarter, but unfortunately Dragon’s ‘Post that to Twitter’ command doesn't help; after highlighting some text, this time, saying those words populates a 140-character box with a ‘Tweet’ button. I need to include hyperlinks etc., so it’s not much use for me, though, for anyone wanting to tell the world a random thought, it’s a completely hands-free experience.
Later in the day I finally get round to a task that’s been on my ‘to do’ list for yonks, and utter ‘electrician’ in earshot of my phone. As a result of yesterday’s searches, Google now thinks I’m in Bedford Park, which happens to be near Adelaide in South Australia. I’m given ‘local’ maps and a Wikipedia entry. The ‘use my location’ button within the Google app appears to be dead, so I enter my postcode and get given the names and one-touch phone numbers for 10 electricians in my area. Yes! We got there in the end.
I’m thinking of heading out to the Brecon Beacons tomorrow, but I’ve heard rumours of snow. ‘It’s not looking good in Brecon today through this Tuesday confirms Siri, laying out a six-day forecast that confirms that, yes, it’s snowing. All weekend. Ah well, I guess I’ll watch the Chelsea vs Manchester United instead. That’s on Sky, right Siri? ‘There’s some bad weather coming up for Manchester this Sunday’ it tells me. That’s about as far as we get.
Day 4
With Siri not only playing-up but also completely devoid of location-specific information, I chance upon a review of the Evi app, pay the 69p fee and download it to my iPhone.
I fire it up the and ask ‘her’ a few questions. Presuming she knows where I am, I say:
“Find me a fish restaurant.”
She comes back with an unsatisfying, “Try opentable.com for restaurants.”
I try again, this time more specific. “Find me a fish restaurant in Cardiff,” but all Evi can muster is links for yell.com, yelp and 118.com. I give Evi a virtual thumbs-down, and it replies,”Cringe! I really hate letting you down!” Cringe indeed. I revert to speaking into Google on the iMac using the Dragon headset, and find a load of choices in seconds. Done.
As 5pm approaches, I try to check the football scores but yelling ‘latest football scores’ into Evi produces just a ‘try goal.com for soccer,’ Soccer? Soccer! I hit the link and almost instantly get the scores.
Day 5
Since it's Sunday, I don't sit at my desk and don't interact with gadgets much at all until 3pm, when I switch on my Xbox 360 in anticipation of Chelsea vs Man Utd on Sky Player. Watching Sky is what I mainly use my Xbox for, and since (decent) footie games aren't Kinect-compatible, I’ve never been much interested in buying a Kinect, but I have borrowed one from a friend for the purposes of this experiemnt.
I'm not a big fan of the new GUI on the Xbox, and nor does its dynamic, ever-changing content seem all that well suited to voice control, but the basic voice controls are OK aside from having to say ‘Xbox!’ before most commands (though not all - ‘home’, ‘social’ and ‘music’ works OK alone).
Lovefilm seems to have the most voice-friendly design; ‘Xbox last chance’, ‘Xbox most viewed’, and even ‘Xbox (title of film)’ works fine, as well as ‘Xbox fast forward/rewind/pause’ etc. I start watching Source Code without touching the Xbox controller once. Even better is LastFM. I skip through various tracks and playlists purely by voice instructions while reading a magazine, but the Kinect then seems to go deaf. Too much background music?
‘Xbox Sky’ launches Sky Player for the start of the match, and after the footie is finished, I shout ‘Xbox play disc’ and the in-situ Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 loads-up. I mournfully return to my controller, and I’m reminded that voice control is in its very early days if it can’t even manage the likes of ‘pass’, ‘shoot’ and ‘two-footed tackle with studs showing’.
Day 6
This week is stacked with work, but I’m not sure what to prioritise. ‘What am I doing this week’ causes Siri to produce a complete list of my appointments, though it would help if I started putting everything in my schedule - you only get out of Siri what you put in. So I take five minutes to tell Siri all about the deadlines I have in my diary for the rest of the week, just by saying ‘schedule', ‘deadline’, telling it the time, and then changing the title of each entry to relate to a specific piece of work. It’s a bit stop-start, but far quicker than using Google Calendar on my iMac (which is synced with my phone).
I fire-up Dragon, then the phone rings. I answer it, come up with a brilliant idea for an editor (probably) and return to my work. What's this on the page?
‘Fpblurred and you are in a while a sunglasses and a are you a year is a is a disease there are 'sntary and, at just 1no whizz with it.’
What the ... ?!?! I forgot to turn off the microphone, sure, but I don't remember mentioning sunglasses or diseases. That deleted, I finish two features I’d not expected to, though my proof reading is done in a rather paranoid state. Actual 'writing' is definitely quicker, but editing is taking longer.
Day 7
A pesky cheque has appeared in the post and, although I know perfectly well where my bank is, I decide to voice my plans. Evi didn't impress me on Friday, but Siri is no help on matter of UK geography, so I give it another try - and it's just as well because ‘where is the nearest Lloyds Bank’ prompts not only a link to a Google map but also a spoken address right down to the postcode. Impressive, though there’s no device control here, so I can’t use Evi to send a text or make a phone call.
Just before end of play someone from a PR agency rings up to offer me a loan of a pair of binoculars for a future article on Pocket Lint, and she e-mails me a loan form. In complete silence, I then download the file, print it, sign it, scan it, attach it to an e-mail, and send it back. How awfully manual. If only the printer could understand me.
I still can’t get used to switching off the headset when I’m not dictating, resulting in another abstract gem on the page, this time where a headline ought to be: ‘handy ladybird left the surgery is methodical and tonic productivity you come to see that were widely crap gadgets.’ Lovely stuff.
Conclusion
Did speaking rather than typing save time? No, not really. Although I frequently managed to rattle-off at least six paragraphs without taking a break, the necessity to go back and alter numbers and the occasional punctuation mistake - not to mention the general editing process in terms of content and style - means it takes roughly the same time to produce the same amount of work.
However, speaking did change the tone and style of what I produced. The first rule of journalism is to avoid clichés but, reading back through my spoken reviews, I noticed a few have crept in. They were hardly peppered with ‘at the end of the day’ and ‘like’, but it's definitely closer to my speaking habits than to my writing style.
Siri is a good personal assistant and just about reason enough to upgrade to an iPhone 4S; ditto Evi, which complements Siri fairly well for now, though both ought to drop the character act. Sarcasm from a glorified search engine seems just plain odd and begins to wear thin very quickly.
The Kinect, we liked, but until voice control is integrated into top-line games it's only purpose can be convenience. I’m not convinced it achieves that yet, though flicking through music on LastFM while making dinner is a good start.
For now, it's the highly accurate voice recognition software from Dragon that impressed us most during the 7 days which saw our keyboard gather dust. The rest, so far, is a stop-start novelty.
Flickr - projectbrainsaver
www.flickr.com
|
