Last night I watched the whole live announcement conference for the new type of the Smartisan smartphone. Of all the new features that attracted me the pre-installed iFly (Xun Fei) voice input method really fascinated me. Until then I had not imagined that the voice input technology of Chinese should have progressed to such a fascinating degree. So I installed it too in my phone to experience the magic efficiency. What I did not expect was that iFly also supports the voice input by English, even though the recognition rate is not as high as that of Chinese. It dawns on me that this can be as much of a strike to those traditional keyboard Chinese input methods as the automobile to the cart. Of course this voice input method cannot be said as “perfect”, one of whose weaknesses is its ignorance of the variable punctuation such as the quotation marks, the exclamatory mark, the colon and the like.

Now I just cannot imagine if I want to write something longer I should use a pen and paper, an inefficient way of writing. The question now is whether I will choose the voice input method as a tool for writing. Probably not, for I am using English as the defaut language for writing. And when writing, I no doubt prefer conceiving my thought in the heart and typing it out, which requires concentration. However, if the technology of English voice input technolgoy martures and the equipment is at hand, I am very likely to have a try, just out of curiosity. I for an instant think that using such a techology can improve the English speaking level as simutaneously as that of writing. Chances are it may turn out to be a block to the continous thinking for the interference from the speaking voice appears much greater than that from the sight, that is, I can type out and stare at the first few letters as simutaneously, if not synchronously, and even harmoniously as think of the output. The speed of typing can be simutaneous with that of thinking. But when I speak, I can have little room for thinking in my brain, which may cause longer pause in writing and in turn cause unecessary anxiety and inefficiency.

突然觉得，用“speaking”来进行“writing”这个动作真是一个奇幻fantasy。又，多年前看到一段话，大约讲时下一部手机芯片的运算速度已经达到当时阿波罗工程动用的所有计算机的速度，别人用这样的计算速度把人发射上了月球，而我们却用来发射愤怒的小鸟砸猪。