Computer defeats human text champ

[KiwiCoromandel]

Ben Cook's fingers flurried so fast you couldn't see what he was doing until he had done it. But when the mobile phone screens cleared, the world's fastest text messenger was handed his first head-to-head defeat: a voice-recognition computer had bested his record time on a complicated 27-word message.

"I'm a little humbled to have been beaten like that," the 18-year-old Provo, Utah, man said with a smile after the race.

The exhibition was sponsored by Nuance Communications In., a company that hopes to deploy its new software across several wireless carriers next year.

Nuance recruited Cook to test him against their software before he embarks on a two-year Mormon mission. He has gained celebrity for the text title and makes $US1000 a day doing public appearances for phone company Cricket.

Two Nuance employees also participated, one using a mobile phone with a predictive text program that turns partial words into full ones and another with a full QWERTY keyboard on a Blackberry.

Neither came close to Cook, who used basic "3-key typing," in which several letters share the same number key on a phone pad. To get the desired character it can take three or more clicks.

Each contestant took turns completing a text message in three rounds of increasing difficulty. All spelling, grammar and capitalisation had to match the sample text precisely.

The first message, "I'm on my way. I'll be there in 30 minutes," took over a minute with the predictive software, 29 seconds with a Blackberry and 16 seconds for the record holder. The voice recognition software finished it in under 8 seconds.

The final message was a duplicate of one that brought Cook a world record. It read "The razor toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygo centrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Cook finished in 48 seconds, six seconds more than his record. But it took the Nuance program just 16 seconds before the 6m-wide screens set up on either side of the contestants flashed red to signal the finish.

source:AP

image:AP:BEN COOK of Provo..Utah..recently crowned world champion of TEXT MESSAGING...takes his turn during a race against the NUANCE MOBILE DICTATION speech recognition technology....