We have all heard about the advancements in home technology, so here's a new one:

Throughout one's home there are microphones that are connected to your home's central computer.These microphones record during most of the day and at night (or at whatever time there is likely to be little talking) goes through and finds key words (go, appointment, meeting, practice, party, the days of the week, etc.) and stores 15 second increments around these key words and occasionally emails the primary household manager with the recorded reminders about things that either have been scheduled or need to be scheduled.

Most features (stored increment time, recognized words, resident's voice patterns) would be customizable, so as not to record your guests' chatter, or the TV, or if you find that the default recording time cuts off in the middle of the important phrase.

As you scheduled events based on the recordings (i.e. I need a doctor's appointment, I have practice on Friday, Cheryl invited us to a party) the event would be forwarded to your scheduling program, a ticker along the border of your TV, or even a reader board by the door.

Of course this would make it harder to claim you forgot something. Maybe we’d just come up with better excuses though.

Obviously this would mean you are purposefully recording most of your own conversations so there would probably want to be some way to turn the recording off, maybe a safety keyword that could temporarily shut off the microphones and another one to turn it back on.
-- PollyNo9, Nov 28 2005

"Where's Timmy, Lassie?"
Woof! Aroooo!
"Listen to the voicemail?"
-- reensure, Nov 28 2005


While I am very much in favor of computerizing chores (like scheduling and remembering events), this is way more than just a passive scheduler - it's more that apocryphal house computer, smart to all the things you are doing.
-- DrCurry, Nov 28 2005


having a computer spy on you all day, think of the conspiracy theories coming out of that.
-- i-Mer, Nov 28 2005


No worse than having a personal assistant. Trust one, trust the other, or not.
-- DrCurry, Nov 28 2005


I am not sure if what the computer recorded would be of much use after a certain number of hours, because eventually all that is left from a specific day is something that's time either hasn't come or hasn't been scheduled.
-- PollyNo9, Nov 29 2005


Then it can save your wife all that talking - the computer could rattle on instead, "But you *said* you were going to fix the closet door, you *said* you were going to pick up the books, you *said* you were going to talk to the landlord..."
-- DrCurry, Nov 29 2005


What about when you're not at home? Bake it into a PDA that only responds to your own voice, and you've got it.

A looping record buffer of the last x=user-settable seconds, keyword triggering, and I'd like a manual "save" button too please, for those gee-I-wish-I'd-recorded-that moments.
-- BunsenHoneydew, Nov 29 2005


I was thinking about that too, but then you'd have to remember an odd word to turn it off (for those un-recordable moments) and a word to re-activate it, and then another to manually ensure recording. I kind of felt it was too many "special" words to pregram in. Mostly because it would be kind of hard to come up with (at least) 3 words that are all readily in the mind yet wouldn't usually come up in conversation.

Although if you are actually talking amaterial "button" then none of what I said up there is necessary. Unless you also wanted to be able to vocally turn it on, then the same problem applies.
-- PollyNo9, Nov 29 2005


//What about when you're not at home? Bake it into a PDA that only responds to your own voice, and you've got it.\\ That's no good. It should record only if there is sound. Otherwise I could not hear what the burglars were saying.
-- zeno, Nov 29 2005



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