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34. Multiple Voices - Part 1

Sep 28, 2024

2 min read

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When you start hearing voices, it is dangerous. But what if the voices are responding to you?


With the rapid progression of my deteriorating eyesight, I was forced to pull my lazy self into the world of fishing, hunting, and prospecting expeditions—all in the greedy pursuit of anything that might help me navigate through a tablet. And so, the exciting and challenging world of voices opened up.


Questions were many. How will the voice sound? Will I be able to understand it? Where all can it be used? Another exploration began. Learning new things is always a struggle in the beginning, but after retirement, with my relaxing recliner and, above all, the pressing need for something to assist me in reading, I had time at my leisurely disposal. During one of my visits to the USA, I came across an article in the Glaucoma Research Foundation, if I remember correctly. The author, an American who was himself visually impaired and running some dock services, wrote entirely about Siri—what it could do and how to use it. Feeling occasionally inquisitive, I somehow managed to reach out to him via email. He promptly replied with one of the longest lists of Siri’s capabilities.


Since I was using an Apple tablet, and Siri was its voice assistant, I decided to start using it.


This was the time when I had to make a decision—to explore each menu, its sub-menu, and then the sub-sub-menus, and so on. It was like a maze. You can easily get lost. Where did I begin? Going back was a pain. And does it stop there? Everything has to be individually switched on or off to see what effect it has. The menus, sub-menus, and further divisions are so many that it becomes impossible to locate the particular application you want to enable. So, like anything else in the world, persistence, effort, and repetition are the keys to mastery. I tried doing that. The elusive treasure of mastery still successfully evades me, but in some aspects, I managed to get at least halfway to that destination.


Pondering where to use it, I tried to narrow it down to some immediate requirements. Maybe the browser—whatever page I opened, perhaps it could read it aloud. That sounded great. Kindle books? Hmm, I think it couldn’t. These smart devices have built-in methods to achieve the same purpose, but only through experimentation and failure can someone like me, who got introduced to these gadgets after becoming a senior citizen, figure these things out.


And how do I know what I type is correct? After much teetering and tottering, I managed to master a few maneuvers.


To be continued... Part 2.

Sep 28, 2024

2 min read

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2

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