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25 Best Productivity Quotes for Work and Life

In case you’d like get motivated, we have hand-picked 25 productivity quotes from people who achieved success in their field. We believe just a few words at the right time can go a long way when it comes to productivity and inspiration.

 

So here it is: 25 quotes by the people who changed the world, each and every one revealing the secret to their productivity.

 

  1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.

Albert Einstein, physicist

 

  1. Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table, close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

Anne Lamont, writer and productivity expert

 

  1. Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ’em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States

 

  1. The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Steven Pressfield, author

 

  1. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company

 

  1. The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

Stephen Covey, educator and entrepreneur

 

  1. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Aristotle, philosopher

 

  1. Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

Dale Carnegie, writer and lecturer

 

  1. It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.

Nathan W. Morris, productivity and business coach, author

 

  1. Every day that I procrastinate, every day that I sit stagnant in fear, every day that I fail to better myself, someone else out there with the same goals and dreams as me is doing the exact opposite.

Noel DeJesus, author and combat veteran

 

  1. No work is insignificant.

Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist

 

  1. You don’t actually do a project; you can only do action steps related to it. When enough of the right action steps have been taken, some situation will have been created that matches your initial picture of the outcome closely enough that you can call it “done”.

David Allen, prolific author and productivity consult

 

  1. What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50%.

Susan Cain, writer and lecturer

 

  1. Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade.

Rudyard Kipling, author

 

  1. Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.

Roy T. Bennett, author

 

  1. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

Jim Ryun, athlete and politician

 

  1. Every champion was once a contender that didn’t give up.

Gabby Douglas, Olympic champion in gymnastics

 

  1. If you’re alive, you’re a creative person.

Elizabeth Gilbert, journalist

 

  1. The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

Bruce Lee, actor and martial artist

 

  1. Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.

Louis Pasteur, chemist and microbiologist

 

  1. The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States

 

  1. Nothing will work unless you do.

Maya Angelou, author and activist

 

  1. If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill, politician and writer

 

  1. The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.

Tom Peters, business management expert

 

  1. The big secret in life is that there is no secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.

Oprah Winfrey, talk show host and producer

 

As you can see, focus and effort are essential for productivity. We hope these quotes have given you the motivation to create something amazing.

 

This page was brought to you by Senstone. To learn more about productivity in the age of distractions, check out our homepage.

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A (Very) Brief History of Speech Recognition

Speech recognition has grown to be an important part of the technological society. Today we take a step back to look at how it first appeared and evolved over the years.

 

“Why Is It Always Bell Labs?”

 

The first successful speech recognition device was developed by Bell Laboratories (New Jersey) and finished in 1952. The developer team (S. Balashek, R. Biddulph & K. H. Davis) called their invention “Audrey”.

 

By the standards of the time, “Audrey” was a miracle. Like all early computers, the system took up a lot of space and had a rather limited set of functions, i. e. it was only capable of one – albeit revolutionary – thing.

 

“Audrey” could reliably recognize nine words spoken into the receiver. Those words were numbers: 1 to 9, meant to make life a bit easier for toll operators. The system was not the making of a wild scientific genius. “Audrey” had grown from the decades-long research performed by Bell Laboratories since the 1920s.

 

“Audrey” had proven voice recognition to be a promising technology for various fields, and so the race was on.

 

Looking For Answers

 

The 1960s were eventful for all things voice recognition. Several entities from around the globe, including IBM and the Soviet science community, made independent improvements to the technology.

 

Was it impressive to the general public, though?

 

Well… Not really.

 

The “Shoebox” machine by IBM could recognize a whopping 16 words in English and had little success. In 1969, Bell Laboratories discontinued their speech recognition research, because the progress seemed too slow.

 

Still, the idea turned out too tempting to pass up. In the 1970s, the US Department of Defence (DARPA) started their own research program.

 

Between 1971 and 1976, DARPA’s Speech Understanding Research program produced “Harpy”, a system capable of discerning 1,000 words. The development of “Harpy” involved scientists from multiple American institutes (Carnegie Mellon, Stanford) and companies (BBN, IBM).

 

The Success

 

Speech recognition made it big in the 1980s – and it’s been growing more and more popular ever since.

 

Voice recognition went from a cutting edge technology funded by DARPA to being sold at street corners fast. The 1980s saw the first voice-controlled toys and voice activated typewriters.

 

Expensive? No doubt.

 

Rare? Absolutely.

 

About to get cheaper and available to everyone with a phone? Yes and yes.

 

Soon the market started growing exponentially. Speech recognition spread to software. The advertised accuracy reached 80% in the early 2000s, but you still had to pay almost $10,000 to buy the program.

 

Further improvements in technology made voice recognition faster and cheaper. With the new algorithms, even low-budget smartphones can handle the task easily. It took us less than 80 years to get from room-sized “Audrey” to Siri.

 

In 2022 speech recognition is heading toward the next milestones.

 

We are about to deliver 100% accuracy for each and every user. What’s more, soon your devices are going to be able to recognize individual voices. This is a huge opportunity for both consumer and developer.

 

Finally: what new things would future advanced voice applications let us do? What industries and existing devices will it transform?  Let us know if the comments below or at our Facebook page.

 

This article was brought to you by Senstone. Every day we work to make voice technology adapt to your needs. Visit our website to learn more.

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Kickstarter For Tech Startups In 2022

You often hear about Kickstarter and tech startups as this match made in heaven, startup founders attributing a large part of their success to crowdfunding. Is Kickstarter really that great for startup projects? Should you consider it?

 

Let’s find out.

 

Crowdfunding? Yes, Please!

 

Kickstarter and technology or not, people love fundraising for things they feel passionate about.  This includes anything from VR headsets and 3D printers to board games and cool watches, especially if you get to secure the product fresh off the presses.

 

Here are some numbers, because everyone loves numbers:

  • the crowdfunding market was worth ~$13.5 billion in 2021
  • it is projected to reach $28.2 billion by 2028
  • i. e. the market is going to double
  • fully funded projects have an average of 300 backers
  • the average pledge is $96 (again, this is for a fully funded project)

 

This means a whole lot of people are interested in crowdfunding. It’s getting trendier. More and more customers are familiar with the concept. For both tech geeks and entrepreneurs, this is great news.

 

Why Kickstarter Is Special

 

If you look for popular crowdfunding platforms, Kickstarter is always on top of the list. In fact, you might have found this page while researching it specifically.

 

All because Kickstarter is huge.

 

No, wait.

 

Kickstarter is HUGE.

 

The community has grown over the years. These days there are marketing agencies dealing with crowdfunding on Kickstarter and nothing else, which is pretty telling.

 

Is Kickstarter a good place if you look to fund your technology project? Let’s check our numbers again.

 

Turns out, among the 16 million active backers there is a high demand for technology. The projects in this category raised a total of $1.22 billion since January 2022, second only to Games.

 

The fun part? The average pledge for Technology equals around $520. For the Games category mentioned above, this number is $160. Backers in the Technology category do not mind paying more to get their hands on innovative products.

 

You Make the Rules

 

The Kickstarter community appreciates things unique and creative, so you can expect as much freedom as possible. On Kickstarter, the project creator has full control of their campaign; great power, great responsibility & all that jazz.

 

  • use your own analytics tools to assess the campaign
  • get detailed statistics from Kickstarter (in real time)
  • customize the campaign page design at any point
  • communicate with users via updates, comments, direct messaging, etc.
  • team up with other creators to advertise efficiently

 

The only standard is transparency. Other than that, you can raise any sum for any product and advertise the campaign wherever. This is great for tech products.

 

Everyone Is Ready To Like You

 

Probably the most important point here. The secret advantage of a crowdfunding platform as big as Kickstarter is simple: users are biased towards your project.

 

 

Remember the 16 million active backers? Well, 6 million out of the 16 are repeat backers.

 

Have you advertised your campaign beforehand? Of course you have, and now that it’s up on Kickstarter most people perceive the product as innovative even before they’ve read the specs.

 

The crowdfunding culture creates spaces for open-minded consumers who are more likely to pay attention to “the cool stuff” and are proactive when it comes to improving their daily life.

 

If you are considering crowdfunding for your technology startup, Kickstarter might just be the perfect choice for you.

 

Last year we raised $112,000 on Kickstarter and made our portable-smart speech-to-text recorder a reality. Want to know more? Check out our home page at senstone.io.

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Neuralink or Voice? Increasing Human Output Bandwidth

 

It’s all over the Internet these days: Neuralink, voice assistants, voice interface, science fiction coming true. The idea that gets everyone so excited is human-computer communication. The prospect of making it fast and organic.

 

Although it’s a bit early to say, there seem to be two main approaches to the problem of interaction with the machine. The first approach advocates brain-computer interface. If you’re thinking brain implants, this is exactly what it’s all about. The second approach favors literal communication, with algorithms making sense of human speech and “understanding” the context.

 

What Are We Dealing With?

 

First of all, let’s see how much these two types of technology already affect consumers around the world. As of 2022, voice technology is getting increasingly common. The reason for this is simple: mobile devices. They are everywhere!

 

Pretty much every single smartphone supports voice search, translation, or typing, all convenient and ever-improving tools. Besides, you can relegate the heavy lifting to a cloud server somewhere in Sweden, Canada, or Japan, and turn even the cheapest of phones into a real powerhouse.

 

As for brain-computer interface, currently the most famous example of the technology would be Neuralink. According to the description on the official website, Neuralink is “the first neural implant that will let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go.” Although not available for purchase just yet, it is slated to enter the market by the end of 2022.

 

Unsurprisingly, Neuralink has competition. Multiple companies try to achieve the same goal: brain-computer interface, no holds barred. The few products that have been launched, however, are not suitable for large audiences as they do not actually allow you to “control a computer”. Most of them are intended for people with paralysis.

 

Racing For the Future

 

Between Neuralink and voice interface, which one is going to come out on top? Spoiler: both. 

 

 

Neuralink

Voice

non-invasive

x

low cost of device

x

control devices remotely

always at hand

works in any environment

x

available for different platforms

?

 

The fact that you need to undergo a surgery to use Neuralink is going to be a deterrent to many. In the near future, until the technology is perfected, we shouldn’t expect a brain implant craze. However, Neuralink can make the public more accepting of the brain-computer interface and create new opportunities.

 

Voice technology, on the other hand, is less flashy but more flexible. Pretty much any device can be fitted with voice recognition. It comes cheaper, too. The disadvantage would be, of course, you having to talk out loud to use voice tech.

 

Our prediction? Neuralink and voice technology are going to perfectly complement each other. There is no life-or-death competition here.

 

Why?

 

It’s on the Neuralink official website: The initial goal of our technology will be to help people with paralysis to regain independence through the control of computers and mobile devices. Our devices are designed to give people the ability to communicate more easily via text or speech synthesis, to follow their curiosity on the web, or to express their creativity through photography, art, or writing apps.

 

What happens next? It’s hard to say. We’ll wait until Neuralink launches worldwide and see. One thing you can rely on: there is no stopping invention.

 

This article was brought to you by Senstone.

Good luck!

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Type With Your Mind, Not Your Hands

It has been 57 years since Alvin Lucier used his brain waves to manipulate percussion instruments and create Music for Solo Performer (1965), one of the earliest and boldest experiments with brain-machine interface. Unsurprisingly, the system Lucier used was rather clunky, and his adventure seemed outlandish to many. However, the idea of unleashing human creativity was – still is – in the air.

 

Once you dream up something that exciting, nothing can stop you.

 

Scientists all over the world are dedicated to bridging the gap between man and machine, one way or another. Are they succeeding? To answer this question, think small.

  • voice search on your smartphone
  • eye trackers for gaming
  • educational AR apps
  • voice assistants
  • mind-controlled prosthetics

 

None of those things existed when Lucier first wrote a music piece with his brain waves. It took humanity less than 60 years to develop all this amazing technology! On top of that, all the cutting-edge inventions became common in a very short span of time.

 

The Big Goal

 

Meanwhile, Elon Musk promises we are going to be able to control computers with our thoughts within the decade. More and more people use speech-to-text to take notes. Voice interface has been making its way into the car industry.

 

Are we going to eventually ditch the crutches? Keyboards, controllers, buttons, switches, one by one? This question has been haunting us forever. Thinking about it made us come up with Senstone.

 

As of now, the regular keyboard moved into the background a bit with smartphones overtaking the market. Touch screens are perfectly convenient for many tasks, not to mention more versatile.

 

Good news? Sure. Still, something is missing. That something is: communication.

 

No matter how good you are at typing, there is no way to make it truly seamless. Keyboards steal our time. They restrict our mobility. There is nothing natural about squinting at the screen. If only we could think at the computer real loud and make it so.

 

 

Where our minds are capable of miracles, the technology does not quite match up – well, yet.

 

Small Steps, Giant Leaps

 

A wise man once said, ‘There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.’ The principle applies to changing the world as much as sorting emails.

 

Every time a solution is implemented to make a process more

  • seamless
  • natural
  • easy

it’s a step in the right direction.

 

Eventually there is going to be no place for something as unwieldy as your brand new phone. Bold concepts are going to become reality. We are going to collectively kill the keyboard.

 

Our Contribution

 

Talking got humans from pushing carts to flying jets, and speech is faster than writing or typing.

 

This is the reason why voice technology is so important for better human-machine interaction. Manipulating computers with your voice is as close as it gets to the perfect UI.

 

Since typing is a huge part of daily life, we have decided to streamline it. No more screens. No more having to physically type out words. Senstone Scripter is our way to precipitate the future.

 

To learn more about Senstone Scripter, check out our home page.

Good luck!

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6 Tips To Double Your Productivity With Remote Work

With more and more people getting vaccinated – 37% of the world population is no joke, – restrictions are lifting, yet we exist in a strange remote work limbo. Some offices are open three days a week while others are back to normal, and some are fully remote.

 

Although there is hope and an expectation that businesses will return to their pre-pandemic operations, this will perhaps not happen soon enough. 

 

While many jobs cannot be remote – hotel management, care-taking, delivery, home repair and airport management, to name a few, there are just as many jobs that benefit from a remote or hybrid work model that profit employer and employee – jobs in digital, e-commerce, engineering, education, entertainment, and more. 

 

With remote work, small and midsize businesses can be productive in the new normal, sometimes even more so than before the pandemic. This mutual benefit is not something that one lets go of easily. 

 

1. Hire from abroad, spend less.

Renting an office, arranging for the equipment, then looking for talent in your area… Should I continue? Sometimes it’s cheaper to hire a guy from another continent, sitting in his flat, with his own computer and all the skills you need.

2. Work from home, earn more.

For many, remote work can be the only way to cross above the average salary. With long-term remote-work environments encouraged by the market, people from developing countries and isolated areas have a better chance at higher income.

3. Make time management easy for everyone involved.

As absurd as it sounds, managing activities remotely is often more effective than doing it in person. Sharing to-do lists you know your co-workers can see has done wonders to the general productivity.

4. Use time zones to your advantage.

International companies can effectively work 24/7 by recruiting based on the location of the employee. Of course, customer service is the most obvious winner in this respect.

5. Capitalize on the change in public perception.

The pandemic normalized reaching out to professionals from across the globe. For service providers, it’s a great opportunity to expand the client base. For consumers, it means more options.

6. The structure is already in place.

Covid-19 forced businesses into adopting new tools, so by now, they are commonplace. You need zero extra effort to invite a remote worker to the team.

Continue reading 6 Tips To Double Your Productivity With Remote Work

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Break the Dopamine Cycle With Scripter

Senstone scripter voice assistant

Scripter is a wearable voice recorder, and dopamine is a neural transmitter. The two are related in more ways than you think.

 

How to trick your brain using Scripter? And how does it work?

 

What is the dopamine cycle, and why does it need breaking? Why do so many people these days talk about it? Read on and find out.

 

Senstone Scripter

 

Dopamine is an organic chemical released by the neurons in our brain. Being a neurotransmitter, it transmits all kinds of signals. In popular culture, dopamine is sometimes known as the “pleasure hormone”, but it’s a very simplistic view.

 

It would be much more fitting to call dopamine the motivation chemical. 

 

Dopamine is released into your system when you anticipate an enjoyable event.

 

The event does not have to be anything major. Pressing a button to see a video game character shoot a blaster at aliens is just as good as witnessing your favorite team win the championship. In fact, it’s more pleasurable due to the simple reality of it being quick and easy to achieve.

 

This is where it gets dangerous.

 

The addiction nobody wants to talk about

 

Dopamine cycle is a pleasure-withdrawal loop you can develop by having too much of a good thing. Momentary pleasure increases your dopamine, which then drops, and you start craving the same activity that had caused the release of the chemical. This way, your brain encourages you to stick to the tasks you find satisfying.

And so you do it again.

And again.

One more time.

Just a bit more.

 

If this sounds like an addiction to you, then you are correct. A perfectly normal neurotransmitter can go haywire and make you associate certain things with pleasure – if you let it.

The most common “addiction” caused by the dopamine cycle?

Data.

Notifications.

Updates.

 

The intense pull to chase instant gratification brought to you by yet another view, yet another repost, yet another animation played in front of your eyes.

 

The habit is stupidly simple to reinforce, so it’s no wonder the internet is the top procrastination spot and entertainment source for most people in 2021. 

 

The good news is that experiencing the information-fueled dopamine cycle does not mean you should toss your phone out of the window and go live under a rock. The cycle can be broken, provided you create the distraction-free environment to “detox” from the stream of feel-good stimuli.

 

This is where Scripter makes its entrance.

 

A wearable recorder with no screen to speak of and a single button, Scripter can help you with the successful dopamine detox in several ways.

 

  • With Scripter, there can be no distractions. The device is physically incapable of displaying images or receiving notifications – and this is a good thing. You can hide your phone; out of sight, out of mind.
  • Stay productive while off the grid. If you find digital detox impossible due to there being just too many things you have to be working on, Scripter is your cheat code to the whole system. Now you can work without typing or even looking at the screen.
  • Long recording sessions. This feature helps you focus without jumping from memo to memo. If the focus is there, you can record a ridiculous amount of text in one sitting (source: experience).
  • Trick your brain. By making Scripter easy to use, we have also managed to make it more appealing to the dopamine-starved brain than scrolling away on your phone. We have turned the instant gratification principle on its head – and it worked!

 

As a productivity and mindfulness tool, Scripter is designed to help you reinforce only the good habits. 

  • Efficiency
  • Focus
  • Dedication
  • Flexibility
  • Creativity

 

Scripter encourages you to take notes anytime, anywhere. Create short memos and to-do lists – or record whole chapters of your newest book. Use it as a digital diary to preserve your happiest memories – or log your business meetings whenever you like.

 

If you want to learn more about Scripter, visit its page on our website. You can also go read more blogs like this one, or check out our Facebook page. If you have any further questions regarding products by Senstone, please do not hesitate to drop us a line at team@senstone.io.

Stay safe!

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Senstone App and Scripter

The long-awaited launch of Scripter has shown just how much the new device has changed compared to the first wearable recorder by Senstone. But what about the app?

Our users have grown accustomed to the Senstone app over the years, and the launch is a good reason for them to be asking whether they should expect any dramatic changes or updates. 

In this post, we are going to address your concerns, the best we can at this point.

 

Senstone App In 2021

As of now, Senstone app is available on Play Store (Android) and App Store (iOS). Its primary function is to accompany Senstone devices. The app handles transcription, storage, sorting, and sharing of the notes taken with your Senstone recorder. 

Another useful feature of the app is that you can record notes directly, using your phone.

Accurate is the premium version of our subscription. Just like the free app, it’s available on Play Store and App Store. In addition to the features included in the “default” Senstone app, Accurate offers the following features:

  • flawless voice-to-text transcription
  • personal dictionary
  • spell checking & punctuation
  • highlights of the words our system is not so sure about (usually proper nouns)
  • paragraphs & abbreviations
  • location tags

For the detailed comparison of Basic and Accurate, visit this page.

 

The Recent Update

You have probably noticed the transcription quality for the Basic plan has improved. This is due to the update we have implemented a couple of weeks ago across all platforms.

With the update, transcription has become much more reliable. The upgraded software differentiates words significantly better than the previous version. This allows for remarkable results, and now you can be sure the audio will translate into text as accurately as possible.

 

Scripter and the Future of the Senstone App

As you probably know, Scripter has a new microphone and records 16bit  WAV audio files at 16kHz, as opposed to the 8bit recordings by the first Senstone device. This alone is going to boost transcription quality, as better audio makes it easier for the software to pick up individual sounds.

You are going to be able to connect your Scripter to the Senstone app like you would connect the original Senstone. We promise full support of Scripter.

Moreover, we are not planning to rebrand the app – at least for now. The launch of Scripter is not going to interfere with your favorite UI.

We are not imposing any limitations on the users of the “old” version of the recorder. We are going to support it for as long as we can. 

The Basic version remains free for everyone, regardless of language, platform, or location.

If you have any further questions, please drop us a line at team@senstone.io, and we will do our best to help you.

Stay productive!

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Scripter: What No Phone Can Do

Voice Assistant

Scripter, the new wearable by Senstone, can record audio and transcribe voice into text without you ever needing to reach for the smartphone.

scripter

Let’s face it, we are bound to our phones and even though most people agree it’s a bad thing, there’s nothing we can do about it; or is there?

 

In the world of screens, updates, and notifications, Scripter is a huge step toward freedom. Where any other device would demand you to tweak a setting or switch to a different mode, Scripter does its best to remain invisible – right up until the moment you want to capture a stray thought; and then you simply tap the only button it has without looking.

 

This is nothing like my iPhone. While I may be carrying a technological miracle in my pocket, it cannot shrink to the size of a button and make it so I don’t have to get distracted.

 

So You Want To Take A Note…

Scripter

Your Phone

1. Tap the button.

1. Find the phone.

2. Speak.

2. Unlock the screen.

3. Tap the button again.

3. Find the notes app.

 

3a. Get sidetracked by notifications.

 

4. Open the app.

 

5. Spend the next 5 minutes typing a note (bonus points if you are on the move).

 

5a. Get sidetracked by contemplating your previous notes.

 

6. Save the note.

 

7. Close the app.

 

8. Lock the screen.

 

9. Put away the phone.

 

This right here is why Scripter is so good at what it does. Designed for the task of recording and managing notes, this tiny digital secretary doesn’t try to be a jack of all trades, which makes it miles more efficient than the alternative.

Scripter senstone

As of September 2021, Scripter is in the pre-launch phase, with the prototype ready and the Kickstarter page about to go live (click here to check it out). Senstone has an impeccable track record when it comes to delivering on the promises made during the ad campaign, and the streak is to go on; powerful and innovative, Scripter is set for success. It’s going to be exactly the helper a lot of people need in their busy, hectic lives.

 

Jason Clark. As a company working to revolutionize note-taking with our wearables, they are always happy to raise awareness about the future of voice technology. Visit the Blog for more articles, subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates about their products, features or drop them a line at team@senstone.io

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Voice Input To Replace Keyboard?

Voice replace typing

The speech to text software has been changing the way we record information. Slowly, but surely, more and more people get used to the idea that the keyboard is not the be-all and end-all of typing.

 

But isn’t the whole voice input business just another a fad? And if it does stick around, should we expect the epic battle of two input methods?

  Voice Input To Replace Keyboard

Every 1 in 4 adults in the United States uses voice to communicate with the machine. Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant have become so common, nobody bats an eye when you ask the room to pull up some music. And if we take a look at the stats, it’s green across the board, with steady growth for voice tech and consumer awareness on the rise. All in less than 20 years! Surely this means the good ol’ keyboard is about to go the way of the dodo.

  Speech To Text To Replace Keyboard

To see the truth behind things, sometimes you have to think small. One person. One friend group. One family. One business. Numbers point you in the right direction, but with little context they can be misleading.

 

Speech To Text Is the Next Big Thing

While we are starting to entrust more and more to voice tech, it seems like the average user sees a very specific set of tasks where it’s useful on the daily – and where it surpasses the keyboard.

 

  • Note-taking
  • Hands-free calls
  • Internet search
  • Small purchases (take-out, groceries, books)
  • Requesting information and media (weather forecast, music)

 

If we think even smaller, reading comments and product reviews, the reality seems to be that speech to text and keyboard complement each other – at least for now. Of course, sometimes voice gadgets get ahead of the ‘traditional’ input methods. Case in point: Scripter, a wearable developed as a more powerful version of Senstone productivity voice assistant (you might have heard about it a couple of years ago when it took Kickstarter by storm; looks like the devs are going to take the crowdfunding approach again, this time with Scripter).

 

Another point in favor of voice is that it’s bringing technology to places where it used to be impossible or dangerous, such as taking notes while driving – which has become perfectly safe, because in 2021 the driver doesn’t have to look away from the road to jot down a memo.

 

A couple of months ago, one of our friends asked the innovation-savvy crowd over at Quora,

 

“What technology will eventually replace the keyboard?

The answers we received illustrate our point pretty well. While the majority agrees voice interface will move the keyboard from its current pedestal, diversity and flexibility is in high demand. The more options for different tasks, the better.

 

“Voice recognition and dictation will primarily replace the keyboard, but editing and various shortcuts will still need a keyboard, either actual mechanical keys or software or projected and sensed, will still be needed. – Bradley Dichter

 

“It’s hopefully never going to be a total replacement – but in the kitchen you can be elbow deep in gunge and still set a timer and turn the radio volume down. – Andy White

 

“Voice isn’t out of place on mobile devices, but I don’t think we’ll see anything replacing keyboards on computers. – Stan Hanks

 

“With gadgets like personal assistants – Alexa, Siri, etc. all in the works and getting better and better every day, you would think that there would be no need for a keyboard anymore. Everything will be voice. That is good. – Julian Pereira

 

How do you see voice technology replacing the keyboard in your life? If you were given a perfect voice recognition software, would you stop using the keyboard on your phone? The questions that used to belong in science fiction are becoming relevant.

 

For more articles about voice technology, speech to text, and getting things done, visit our blog.