The analog way for families to keep track of soccer practice, ballet and flute lessons is a calendar tacked up on a wall in the kitchen. But, as we all know, we don’t live in an analog world anymore.
If families were like companies, they could keep track of things with iCalendar or Outlook, but that would require laptops or smartphones for everyone in the family, along with some tech savvy.
A study by Iowa State University researcher Mark Monroe proposes something much simpler—using a voice interface system to do the job.
“[Feature] cell phones have enabled communications between family members but don’t provide access to systems such as email and the family calendar,” Monroe writes in his report, Remote Voice Interface for Home Communication Tasks.
Let’s face it, what dad or mom wants to buy $600-$800 smartphones for every member of the family? A much less expensive and simpler approach could be to set up a voice interface system.
“The proposed system is a home information system focused on improving family communication and control of household tasks. A core set of communication functions includes voicemail, email and calendar.”
With the advances in recent years in voice-interface technology (particularly the advent of VoiceXML IVR and improvements in speech recognition software), such a system is possible.
“In order to make these functions as available as possible, they must be accessible in various forms, via various means.”
What Monroe proposes is a centralized system that resides in the family home but is accessible from a variety of devices. Family members could access the calendar or emails on the family home computer, via a PDA, by calling into the system for audio messages or even with a “portable screen in the kitchen.”
It’s an interesting concept—kind of like the systems used in the corporate world, just scaled down for the family.
