Xoke.org

I’m still playing around with Google Voice and have just set it up to connect to Gizmo.  You just add a new phone and select ‘gizmo’ as the type.  Google will call you and you have to enter a number to prove you have the phone and so you can’t use it to prank call people, for example.  I found Google wouldn’t accept the numbers until I said ‘out of band’ under preferences -> advanced within Gizmo like so:

Once I did that Google recognised the number immediately (no need to reboot or even close that window down!)

I recommend putting it back to IN-BAND as I believe Talkshoe requires in-band though.

So in theory using this you can call anyone in the US for free from anywhere in the world.  I am going to continue to try this out.  I did make a test call to MrsXoke and there was a half second delay, but for free phone calls I can live with that!

I received my Google Voice invite a few hours ago and have set one up for me.  So far I'm the only one to call it (I was playing) and have found that the transcription is REALLY bad.  Maybe it is my accent, but so far it hasn't been close.

I said: Errr lets test something.  Testing testing testing, Xoke, something or else, something or other, that'll do.

It transcribed: i don't know if that's something testing testing testing is that something row so we're all of those

I didn't expect it to get 'Xoke', but it had many problems.

 

So maybe it was my accent.  So I asked MiniXoke to try calling it.

MiniXoke said: erm, hi I'm just testing to make sure this isn't because he has an English accent.  Alright bye.

It transcribed: hi i'm just testing the truth and again things accent alright bye

This wasn't too bad actually.  It got about half of it right!

  

I said: And testing again.  Oh I am the very model of a modern major-general, I've information animal and vegatable and mineral.  And lets try that a little slower.  Oh I am the very model of a modern major-general, I've information animal, vegatable and mineral.  And lets see how that works.  Actually whilst I'm still on the line lets see if it does actually mention something there… oh no, alright, never mind.

It transcribed: Transcript not available

 

I said: Testing on speakerphone, lets try to slow the speech down a little and see how the transcription works.

It transcribed: this afternoon because in let's try and slaves beach down a little and see how it sounds good to works

Wow.  Almost completely wrong!

 

I said: And this is through the er web thing.

It transcribed: hernandez the okay <long silent period>

 

So overall… the transcription sucks.  Maybe it's just the accent.  It did do significantly better with MiniXoke's American accent.  But the transcription isn't the whole thing about Google Voice, it is for a single number and voicemail and so on and for that it seems to work as it should.

If you want to call me and give it a try:

 

 

 

Update

Ron K Jeffries called in!  I checked and he didn't mind me posting it here (in fact he wants to know how well it worked).

Ron: Hello this is Ron Je.. K Jeffries from Identica and I saw that you were playing with Google Voice and thought what the hell, I'd try your little widget.  Again it's Ron Jeffries, Good Luck, Bye

Transcription: hello this is ron cook my okay jeffries from identical then i saw that you were playing with google voice and about what the hell i'd try your bill which it again it's ron jeffries good luck bye

This worked a lot better.  Looks like it is the accent that is throwing it off (or a child's voice).  It didn't get a few things right like his name first off all but Ron started to say Ron Jeffries and then added his middle initial.  Still not sure how COOK came up.  Widget to Which it… I can see why that had a problem.  Overall I am now far more impressed as it is about 80% accurate*

I would like more tests though, so if anyone else fancied calling in go for it!  I plan on manually transcribing them up, at least until I get bored of this anyway!

 

Jennifer Leggio just called me.  She is mediaphyter on twitter.

Mediaphyter: Hi it's Jennifer Leggio mediaphyter.  I'm calling to test the Google Voice.  I found your transcription blog post, hysterical so um, of course i had a call i'll try and see what it did to garble what I had to say so I hope you're having a great day and i'll talk to you soon bye

Transcription: hi it's jennifer let you know media fighter i'm calling to test the group of away i found your transcription bloggers it's terrible so of course i had a call i'll try and see what it said to grable what i had to say so i hope you're having a great day and i'll talk to you soon bye

 

I should point out that it does show how confident it is in the transcription and the bits it got wrong it thought were probably not quite right.  It didn't get Leggio right (fair enough, not that common a surname) and Mediaphyter (again, no surprise there).  Odd it didn't recognise 'Google Voice' and why 'grable' and not garble?  Overall though about 90% accurate*

I am going to try to grab a video of it reading to show how that works and will update when I get that working (no sound currently!)

* Statistics calculated by me eyeballing it and pulling a figure out of my arse.

Been playing around with Conky using this guide.  Although it didn't work (perhaps because of NVidia driver issues?)  Had to change own_window_type override to own_window_type normal and then it worked.

 

I'm still playing around with it, but will post my .conkyrc file once I'm happy with it.

So I've been running virtual box for a while now and have found one minor (but fixable) problem.  New kernel updates kill it.  A quick google finds the problem and I paraphrase it below, but I found this on Tombuntu.
 
Problem:
Opening a virtual box machine gives a windows saying 'spawn session' which permanently hangs.
 
Solution:
killall VirtualBox
sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
 
Thanks Tombuntu