Ask HN: Is voice becoming your main input? What happens to open-plan offices?

10 comments

• d3Xt3r 2 hours ago
  > Is voice or dictation taking over as the major way of interacting with your computer or agents?

  No. Most of my work involves writing code/commands, troubleshooting, automation, testing etc, across multiple/nested environments and systems. Kinda hard to use voice for all that. Now if I was simply typing a long-as document, then sure voice would make sense, but I really can't see how I can do a sysadmin job with mostly voice input.
• brudgers 12 hours ago
  Open plan offices aren't going away and nothing will really change because open plan offices have long been used where lots of people spend all day talking on the phone.

  Acoustic privacy is has two components. Attenuation is the obvious one. Masking is the one that's not. Controlling rather than minimizing white noise from air-conditioning is the ordinary approach by professionals.

  Of course, a lot of open office designs are driven by "taste" rather than judgement informed by experience and science. So you get hard floors and hard ceilings instead of carpet and acoustic tile (it's right in the name, duh) and complaints.

  In other words, it's a solved problem. Poor choices aren't.
• Leftium 18 hours ago
  There are microphones that can capture whispers and even subvocalization: https://youtu.be/NvVbCqDgfCs?t=520

  The one demo'ed in the video is BOYA BY-GM18CU (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF969RVP)

  That one captures whispers. I've heard other devices can dictate based on vibrations from your neck/chest.
• aavisangle 3 hours ago
  Yes it is and now it's a daily driver for me.
• kazinator 21 hours ago
  What's already happened to open-plan offices is that they are at least half empty due to remote work. People go to them to interact with coworkers as much as for a quiet space. People go specifically to be available for face to face conversation, so loud conversations are heard.

  Voice isn't my main input but the handful of times I voiced something in the middle of an office, I spoke quietly, with a near whisper, into a close mic. It was much quieter than I would normally be able to speak to a coworker.
• adelekeabdulgan 17 hours ago
  I've adopted voice as my main input, and i love it, It is much faster than text. and for your question, i do think NC headphones will become the default for open floor plan offices, or maybe microphones than captures whispers.
  [-]
  • bigblind 17 hours ago
    There's somethign very black mirror about an office floor full of people softly whispering to their computer
• td521534f12 17 hours ago
  I can use my Macbook's microphone while my hifi system is blasting death metal at full volume. The people I'm talking to can't hear the music at all and still hear me perfectly. (The Macbook has multiple microphones in an array which can isolate the speaker from the surroundings.)
• maidaman 18 hours ago
  Along with noise cancelling headphones, noise canceling microphones will probably get really good.
• spottedmarley 21 hours ago
  tall, thick cubicle walls.
• weddingaivideo 4 hours ago
  [flagged]