CTI@Home
BY EVAN KOBLENTZ
Technology Editor, TMC Labs™

Input Innovations

I know that natural voice control will replace most mouse and keyboard functions someday: It must be true because I saw it on Star Trek. In the meantime, let's consider how inefficient our current input devices are, what's being done to make them better, and how this applies to CTI.

Keyboards
Keyboards, except in size, shape, and reliability, haven't changed much since the QWERTY alphabet became common. Many of today's keyboards are ergonomic or wireless, many have special feature buttons and others even have speakers, a microphone and a trackball or touchpad built in. Beside the extra finger strain, adding these features in the name of saving desktop space doesn't impress me. My ideal keyboard would be laptop-sized, very thin and lightweight, wireless and -- above all -- it would only have the minimum keys necessary to type with. It would be very non-intrusive and would work on any plane, not just that of my desk.

Speech Recognition
But that keyboard would only be temporary until the speech recognition (SR) people finally get it right. Look at the CTI Online Buyer's Guide, and you'll see about three dozen companies doing SR development. Most of the biggest players have demonstrated for us on-site -- including Nuance Communications, Dragon Systems, Philips Speech Processing, IBM, SpeechWorks, and Lernout & Hauspie.

But they all share the same catch: They can hear and assume, but they can't truly understand. To even approach SR understanding would take massive amounts of computing power and borders the artificial intelligence realm, which is outside of our scope. Translators like C-3PO are a long way off.

Maybe it's just because I talk too fast and don't always enunciate clearly, but every time I try one of these packages, even with an hour or more of training the system to recognize my voice, I end up disappointed. It takes me longer to use speech recognition and edit the software's misunderstandings than it does to just type the whole thing, and I don't see how the effort saved from my fingers compensates for the extra time needed to make it work.

Mouses
Which leads me to mouses. The keyboards I referred to already exist, and although they're expensive, they are gradually becoming more affordable and more available in the mainstream computer stores.

The best mouses are another issue: To me, "best" means that the unit should be handheld and wireless, it should have programmable buttons and a scroll wheel, it should have a strong case and sturdy components because it might be dropped, and it should be lightweight. Two other issues are even more important. First, these devices should use a gamepad or a trackpoint controller, but never a trackball, because trackballs' insides get very dirty and stop working in a hurry. Second, such an input device must cost no more than a decent mouse.

I know of seven devices that come close. These include Philips' SpeechMike and SpeechMike Pro, SelecTech's AllController, Interlink Electronics' RemotePoint and RemotePointPlus, Logitech's TrackMan Live, and Diamond Multimedia's GyroMouse Pro. For a quick comparison, see Table 1.

So far, I've personally tested both of the SpeechMike units and the RemotePoint standard. The SpeechMike Pro has programmable buttons, plus a speaker and a microphone, and the RemotePoints are wireless and lightweight, so anyone who develops a combination unit will immediately get my endorsement! For last-minute holiday presents, I highly recommend the RemotePoint standard, the SpeechMike standard (but be prepared to clean the trackball often!), the GyroMouse Pro (which I haven't tested yet, but with the $20 rebate coupon on their Web site, you can't go wrong), and the AllController. Unfortunately, none of these devices has a scroll wheel, and now that my standard desktop mouse has one I wouldn't want to give it up. We'd love to hear from any readers who have feedback about these devices, or suggestions about what can be done to make them even more productive.

Conclusion
I would like to see any CTI products that ship as turnkey systems also have enhanced productivity versions that include the best keyboards, SR software integration, and a really good mouse. After all, if CTI is an entire industry bent on making businesses more productive, why not start with the input devices?

Just one third of the keyboard/SR/mouse combination shipped with CTI servers would be a good start, and most of these devices would be a good fit for a forward-thinking VAR, who could in turn tailor them for call centers.

Give me a loaded Pentium II with a minimalist wireless keyboard, a high-quality speech recognition package for command and control, and a full-featured wireless mouse, and I'll give you a glimpse of the future of CTI.

Comments on this column can be directed to the author at ekoblentz@tmcnet.com.