This blog is being written by voice command. It is a new feature offered by Apple computers and the latest version of Mountain Lion software. It’s designed to allow the operator to speak their thoughts at a quicker pace than they could type. I find it a bit awkward, as I’m used to thinking and typing when I construct my sentences.

New technology always gets my mind reeling about its many possible uses. For instance, if I were giving a lecture or speaking at a conference, I could possibly record my voice and make a book available by the end of the conference. It would include the exact information I shared, similar to a published transcript of the event.

Many speakers are aware that certain ideas pop into their mind during the middle of a talk and each one of those new thoughts could be captured in real time for a future book. Unfortunately the bandwidth and the database size aren’t sufficient enough to keep up with a speaker. But, it would give the speaker an opportunity to work from the written text of their talk without first having to transcribe it from an audio file or videotape.

This new technology takes time to get used to as well as practice. The more I’m using it, the easier it gets. Aside from the convenience factor that might make it appealing, I can still type a lot faster than I can speak, while constructing new literary thoughts in my head. There is something about the process that makes the old way work better for me.

I’m not opposed to speaking my text instead of typing it, but what I say and how I say it seems to be significantly different than how I think and write. Even after speaking this blog into existence, I found myself going back to the keyboard to make alterations for readability. In fact, I found that typing this paragraph took me half the amount of time than each of the above spoken paragraphs. Of course, that could be due to my experience and comfort level in the old process.

The only other issue that I struggle with is speaking text out loud, which requires a room with less noise than I have at times. It might also require more privacy. Since most of my blogs were typed during my morning train commute, I would find it difficult speaking out loud and disturbing those around me. After all, they didn’t ask me to share my ideas with them.