February 13, 2012

Android and the Indian Accent

After my trustworthy Nokia plunged into a toilet bowl and never recovered fully, I finally entered the smartphone fray with the cheapest Android phone available in the marketplace. I had held out for many years, finding the devices too large to be convenient and too complicated to be efficient. For instance, my fingers correspond to more than one letter at a time on the touchscreen keyboard, so it is very difficult to type text messages. I was with a colleague when I discovered it had voice recognition capabilities that could ease my typing burden. Much to my amusement, it could not decipher my coworker's Indian accent.

Me: I am very handsome.
Phone: I am very handsome.
Me: I am testing out voice recognition.
Phone: I am testing out voice recognition.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I am dictating the fort.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I'm checking the phone.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I am digging the phones.
Indian coworker: Let's try something easy. I went to the sea.
Phone: BBC Weather.
Indian coworker: I went to the sea.
Phone: Irish crikey.
Indian coworker: I went to the sea.
Phone: Sex.
Me: It can even read minds.
Indian coworker: How did you read my mind?
Phone: Cheese P Diddy my mind.