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I did something similar (without their reveal) to my mom back in the 90's. Using the parrot program that shipped with my Sound Blaster Pro sound card, I rubber

I did something similar (without their reveal) to my mom back in the 90's. Using the parrot program that shipped with my Sound Blaster Pro sound card, I rubber-banded a microphone to the earpiece of a telephone. I asked my mom to come in and talk to the computer, and my friend on the telephone would respond, and the parrot program would repeat what he said out of the computer speakers. It wasn't 100% perfect but for a few moments my mom was amazed at what our computer could do. A few years later I also pulled a similar prank on my uncle, who bought a new CD player. He asked me and my cousin to set it up and we found a remote in the box. We told him it was voice activated and we used the remote while he asked it to play/pause/skip. Again for a few moments he thought it was the coolest thing ever until our disappointing reveal. I think this goes to show that people have always wanted to talk to computers, and 30 years later we're still trying to get it right.

saghm 3y ago
> A few years later I also pulled a similar prank on my uncle, who bought a new CD player. He asked me and my cousin to set it up and we found a remote in the box. We told him it was voice activated and we used the remote while he asked it to play/pause/skip. Again for a few moments he thought it was the coolest thing ever until our disappointing reveal. When I first got a Pixel phone with the fingerprint sensor on the back, I told my father that the phone responded to voice commands to unlock, but it only would listen to my voice. I demonstrated by telling it "unlock" (and pressing the sensor on the back) and then locked it and handed it to him to try to unlock it, and it was amusing to watch him say "unlock!" in amazement a few times before I showed him how it actually worked. Ironically, a couple years later, I ended up getting a Google Home smart speaker and showed him it, and he was reluctant to use voice commands to try it out at first (possibly due to being wary of being tricked again). He ended up having fun seeing how it would respond to silly phrasings of questions though; I think his favorite was when he told it "Play that funky music, white cylinder!" and it obediently started playing "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry.

saghm 3y ago

> A few years later I also pulled a similar prank on my uncle, who bought a new CD player. He asked me and my cousin to set it up and we found a remote in the box. We told him it was voice activated and we used the remote while he asked it to play/pause/skip. Again for a few moments he thought it was the coolest thing ever until our disappointing reveal. When I first got a Pixel phone with the fingerprint sensor on the back, I told my father that the phone responded to voice commands to unlock, but it only would listen to my voice. I demonstrated by telling it "unlock" (and pressing the sensor on the back) and then locked it and handed it to him to try to unlock it, and it was amusing to watch him say "unlock!" in amazement a few times before I showed him how it actually worked. Ironically, a couple years later, I ended up getting a Google Home smart speaker and showed him it, and he was reluctant to use voice commands to try it out at first (possibly due to being wary of being tricked again). He ended up having fun seeing how it would respond to silly phrasings of questions though; I think his favorite was when he told it "Play that funky music, white cylinder!" and it obediently started playing "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry.