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

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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. ~~~~~~~~~~ <strong>NYT</strong>-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
on the street,” concluded Mr. Littau, 36, an assi stant professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University. The technology behind voice-activated mobile phone s has been around for a few years — allowing peopl e to order their phones around like digital factot ums, commanding them to dictate text messages, jot down appointments on their calendars and search f or nearby sushi restaurants. Apple, though, has ta ken it to another level with Siri. “Happy birthday smiley face,” was what Dani Klein heard a man say to his phone on the Long Island Ra il Road, using the command to insert a grinning em oticon into a message. “It sounded ridiculous,” said Mr. Klein, 28, who wo rks in social media marketing. Talking to your phone is so new that there are no official rules yet on, say, public transportation systems. Cliff Cole, a spokesman for Amtrak, said the train line’s quiet-car policy applied to any use of voi ce with cellphones, though it explicitly bans only “phone calls,” not banter with a virtual assistan t. “We may have to adjust the language if it becom es a problem,” Mr. Cole said. Voice-activated technology in smartphones first ap peared a few years ago when mobile phones running Google’s Android operating system and other softwa re began offering basic voice commands to do Web s earches and other tasks. Apple’s Siri, introduced this fall, is a more sophisticated iteration of th e technology; it responds to natural-sounding phra ses like, “What’s the weather looking like?” and “ Wake me up at 8 a.m.” Apple gave Siri a dash of personality, too, reinfo
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eing honored at the 21st annual Bro
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ianne Murphy leaned over a conferen
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And the bonuses, many say, run deep
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if you’re going to be frustrated
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h a long sock and a winter hat. The
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Putin supporters, including brazen
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talists with a confidence that they
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Unlike Mr. Cameron, Mrs. Thatcher c
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for the talent, shares a few unprin
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cordings to his childhood friend Al
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~~~~~~~~~~ NYT-1209: EDITORIALS As
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This is how parliamentary elections
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On Monday, the day after the electi
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their Twitter feeds. Someone had sp
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ours later, a blindingly profane re
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nd Human Services building, at time
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Ms. Grimmer had first applied for f
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and Russian chafed at the advantage
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a decade running around the world t
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