what the hell does Microsoft Speech have to do with your computer talking.
Microsoft TTS is the Text-to-Speech Engine, it's a part of MS Speech 5.6 but it's not exactly used. The Speech Engine provides full interaction with your computer via Verbal Input Commands.
You can easily switch between Command and Speech Recognition.
I use it all the time because I can effectively work on one computer literally doing emails, documents, etc.. by just talking while on the computer i'm physically activel on i can be doing something different entirely.
This goes for messengers or even the forum. At roughly 1GHz a computer is more than fast enough for effective use like this, at over 2.0GHz it even understands my Ex's speech speed.
For me this feature of Office (which extends to every application on your desktop through the MS Language Bar) is totally invalueable. For example I can speak and understand Japanese pretty flawlessly, but to actually type it and read it is a challenge; So being able to just shift my language to Japanese and use that to input my documents makes it multi-lingual especially with the speech being able to talk to me. This is extremely good with the AT&T Natural Voice actually, because while it can sound slightly off at times; generally speaking it speaks back to you to a point where if your not paying it you complete attention it sounds like someone real is talking to you (despite it just being a computer).
But I'm not part of the majority.. somehow I see this feature is generally only used by a small handful of people compared to how fast the entire internet is. Although I have no doubt that computing over the next 10years is going to evolve to a point where doing stuff like this is a common replacement for the keyboard; fact is that most people won't want to put in the hour or so each week that I have for the past 2 years to get thier voice pattern recognised to a degree where you can say anything and the computer understands you without lengthy pauses or incorrect words.
So while it's an ultimately pointless feature now, development down the line will make it useful once it reaches a point that it can actually be good for everyone not just those willing to put the time in.
This is why I don't feel this particular feature will really appeal further than people like Mouse. It certainly doesn't make me want to switch from MSN Search, and really it's people like me that Google needs to start trying to impress. Rather than trying to keep providing all of these silly gimmics.
They're new mapping software does look impressive to me, though that said.. it's only minor features that make it better to msn maps. They still provide nearly identical services; and MSN's is quicker with better directions. So again don't feel like using Googles' anytime soon. Especially given they don't show complete areas, but reather those annoying popup bubbles.
