Ever had an argument where someone says something to you, and then denies saying it? Well, everyone (Who wants to) carries around a small dictaphone with a constantly spooling tape (Or memory card/stick) that keeps 15 min's or so of conversation. When it runs out of space, it just starts recording over the eairliest data. If someone denies saying something, you just play it back to them. You could also copy pertinent soundbites to a more non-volitile memory.
-- QuadAlpha, Jul 28 2000

road data recorders http://www.halfbake..._20Data_20Recorders
So, sorta like this, but for conversations instead? [egnor, Jul 28 2000, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Instant replay http://www.halfbake...ea/Instant_20replay
So, sorta like this, but for sound, not video. [jutta, Jul 28 2000]

If we all used e-mail instead of that obsolete "voice" protocol, we wouldn't have these issues. Plus, we'd never have to leave home. Ah, the hassles of backward compatibility...
-- egnor, Jul 28 2000


I could really see this backfiring as often as (or more than) it worked. Even if you face someone with their actual words, and they were the way YOU actually remembered them, there's still room for, "what I meant was...".
-- centauri, Jul 28 2000


Hmm.. I think I'd like a constant dictaphone that also transcribed and indexed all of my conversations. If we're making something silly, then why not? I don't want to have to hear myself being inarticulate day in and day out, I'd rather just read it. You could search on key words or phrases, or look up conversations in the auto-index by participant; every time you were introduced to someone new, their voice would be stored for future reference. Of course, most people would rarely use the transcripts, but since we don't talk *that* much, it wouldn't take up too much disk space. I can just imagine sitting in front of my computer after a bad breakup and reading the transcripts of our first few conversations.
-- mcfrank, Aug 02 2000


My girlfriend remembers everything I say, whether I ask her to or not. Still haven't determined how long her buffer is... but it's long. way long.
-- koz, Aug 02 2000


I met someone from Xerox once who had his whole work life on video. All his movements around the office were tracked (he wore an infra-red transponder badge), and cameras would video him wherever he went and dump the video to tape drives in the basement. He could then ask for replay of himself indexed on time of day, or what room he was in or who he was talking to (everyone else wore these badges too). Moreover, the camera mounted above his desk could recognise what document he was reading (every document printed by the laserprinter had its pattern of word breaks and line lengths recorded so that lo-res video camers could still recognise them). So, he could ask "Show me video of the time I last met with X, and print a copy of the document we discussed". This was all in the mid-80's. Amazing stuff. There were other very cool ideas along the same lines, but not really relevant here.
-- hippo, Aug 03 2000



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