Apple Technology Review, Fall 1997: News

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Once More, With Feeling

Computer-generated speech has gotten a bad rap for being mechanical and monotonous sounding, but the creator of a software program called Affect Editor hopes to change all that. When a user selects any of six emotions--annoyed, cordial, disdainful, distraught, impatient, or plaintive--the software assigns one of 21 integers to each of numerous acoustical qualities representing aspects of pitch, voice quality, timing, articulation, and loudness. For instance, plaintive speech is soft, low-pitched, and slurred, with minimal variability and many pauses. Annoyed speech is characterized as loud, high-pitched, quick, with irregular rhythms, inflections, and precise enunciation. The software is on display at the Boston Computer Museum (Technology Review, Aug/Sep 97).

Speeding Technology, Weary Users

Looking at the accelerating rate of technological change, Shane Greenstein of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign thinks that the biological metaphors for technology may have to be replaced by ones associated with earthquakes and tectonic movements. A biological metaphor such as "product life cycle" suggests an orderly progression that no longer does justice to the frantic pace of modern innovation. "With only rare exceptions, only technologists brag about the speed with which things change today. Vendors no longer boast about it; most just endure each new competitive episode and celebrate surviving another day. Except for the most technical user (or the most competitive office situation), the speed of change comes too rapidly for most users" (Shane Greenstein, "The Biology of Technology," IEEE Micro, Jul/Aug 97).

In search of "precompetitive" technologies

Despite the recent squeeze on research budgets, companies are filing for more patents than ever, and the recently released 1997 Battelle R&D Magazine research-funding forecast predicts the budget pendulum will swing in the other direction for the next few years. And while today's research labs are focusing on relevancymaking sure the research complements the company's strategic goalsthey're not afraid of what's called "discontinuous" research radical studies that break with a company's normal investigations. Industry observers caution that these further-out studies won't look much like the old "blue-sky" heydays at Bell Labs and GE, but the trend does indicate a higher risk tolerance as companies try to anticipate new businesses before they're forced out of the ones they're in. To leverage these research efforts, they're funding more joint projects with academic labs and turning to research consortia similar to the Sematech semiconductor effort to pursue so-called precompetitive technologies (Upside, Sep 97).

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