NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

ple and so that circle is diminished, and as it di
minished, you know Bo is still there,” he said of
his dog. “And I swear he understands. I swear he k
nows. And you know I love him dearly for that.”
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
~~~~~~~~~~
NYT-1203
Oh, for the Good Old Days of Rude Cellphone Gabbers
... By NICK WINGFIELD
When virtual assistants like Apple's Siri are used
in public places, the results can be annoying, ev
en creepy, to unwilling listeners.
===== notyet
Is talking to a phone the same as talking on it?
The sound of someone gabbing on a cellphone is par
t of the soundtrack of daily life, and most of us
have learned when to be quiet — no talking in “qui
et cars” on trains, for example.
But the etiquette of talking to a phone — more pre
cisely, to a “virtual assistant” like Apple’s Siri
, in the new iPhone 4S — has not yet evolved. And
eavesdroppers are becoming annoyed.
In part, that is because conversations with machin
es have a robotic, unsettling quality. Then there
is the matter of punctuation. If you want it, you
have to say it.
“How is he doing question mark how are you doing q
uestion mark,” Jeremy Littau of Bethlehem, Pa., fo
und himself telling his new iPhone recently as he
walked down the street, dictating a text message t
o his wife, who was home with their newborn. The m
achine spoke to him in Siri’s synthesized female v
oice.
Passers-by gawked. “It’s not normal human behavior
to have people having a conversation with a phone