TalkBack: a conversational answering machine

13 years 9 months ago

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Current asynchronous voice messaging interfaces, like voicemail, fail to take advantage of our conversational skills. TalkBack restores conversational turn-taking to voicemail retrieval by dividing voice messages into smaller sections based on the most signiﬁcant silent and ﬁlled pauses and pausing after each to record a response. The responses are composited into a reply, alternating with snippets of the original message for context. TalkBack is built into a digital picture frame; the recipient touches a picture of the caller to hear each segment of the message in turn. The minimal interface models synchronous interaction and facilitates asynchronous voice messaging. TalkBack can also present a voice annotated slide show which it receives over the internet.

Vidya Lakshmipathy, Chris Schmandt, Natalia Marmas

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