Speak and Spell is one of those technologies. Speak and Spell would not typically come to mind when considering the evolutionary process of technology but being in the process of reading a work by Sherry Turkle, The Second Self, and having recently come across a Droid app that mimics the device’s purpose, it’s an excellent example of what has been and what is.
OK so what does it remind me of?!?! Why index cards, of course! Granted they don’t say the words but my dad did. Nonetheless, they were the prompts used to practice spelling and mathematical skills.
The Speak and Spell “was, perhaps, one of the first consumer electronics products based on DSP [Digital Signal Processing] technology.” What’s DSP? That’s the technology that brings us medical imaging and seismic data processing but it’s also one of the technologies that bring us speech processing and recognition. The Speak and Spell advanced alternative and augmentative communication devices; led to the development of consumer speech-to-text and text-to-speech programs, including talking dictionaries and calculators; and MP3s. What will it evolve into? I really don’t know. Maybe it could be used to improve upon technologies that augment and/or replace the physical structures used for hearing and speech. Maybe it could create algorithms to understand the sound patterns of animals and finally give Fido a voice. Maybe it could be used to determine potential problems with gas and oil lines before disasters occur. Maybe it could decode brainwaves into language for those that have paralysis or other such disorders that prevent even the muscular means with which to create sound.
Since the technology’s use is so far reaching in the first place, it seems only fitting to say that it could evolve into anything and that only time will tell what it will become.
