LOL, ah well what can you do? Recognising complex input like audio/video is no simple task; sometimes applications fall short.

Gift.

Discrimination is not racism, you can be discriminated against for being old, for being female, for having a strange accent, that's not because of your race, that's because of your age, gender or dialect, as was mentioned umpteen times in this thread, the UK itself has several dialects, as does the UK, if someone complained that they couldn't understand a newsreader because of a deep Texan accent, is that racism?

Wow, people can start claiming that they are being discriminated against when the game doesn't work right for you?

I'm left-handed... I want every controller-producing company of the past 20 years to pony up some reparations to my victim-ass.

I hope no one is going to actually take this seriously.

and no im not illiterate or w.e.... just rly pissed off

The "Blue" issue isn't one of accent, it's the "BL" blend blows out a puff of air when spoken, and this air overloads the DS mic. Try talking with your mouth aimed slightly away from the mic.

And "Yeller?" Learn to speak.

God, some people just jump on the 'it's because of my race' bandwagon at the drop of a hat! I mean, seriously, just because you have sub-optimum performance with something doesn't mean it's because of your race. In this case, it IS a part of how you speak, but that's hardly the game's fault. They can't program a game with every way to say every word in the game, unless they gave you the chance to program your own voice pattern in... a bit much for a DS game.

OMG c0nsp1r4cy!!1111

Perhaps the reasonable, more "journalistic" approach would be that the voice recognition software is imperfect. However, conspiracy theories generate more attention.

I've also had problems with the Brain Age speech portions. I guess its time to sue.

I dunno, "blue" has been a matter of accent in my experience. I'm from the South Jersey shore, which may have some of that philly accent, but mainly has an accent of "never enunciate anything ever!". So my blue's tend to come out as "bluh", or something like that, and I feel like I have to yell "blooooo!" to get it right.

I'm interested in seeing how things change as voice recognition becomes more prominent (or maybe even mandatory). Whether software writers can make more complex programs that recognize more accents, or whether society as a whole is forced to adjust their way of speaking to a singular form. Maybe THEN we'd have an actual discrimination issue on our hands.

In Britain we are lucky in my opinion to have a wealth of colorful and quirky accents. But there is a huge difference between between not being catered for and being discriminated against.

I'd like to point out here that, speaking with a Scottish accent myself, I had no trouble at all when I had a go at "Brain Training", it came as second nature to make a slight adjustment to my accent.

@~the1jeffy

There are worse bastardisations of the English language than the Manchurian accent. Trust me! (Just in writing this my browser is demanding I spell "bastardisations" with the American "bastardizations". It's that stuff that bugs me personally!)

It seems somebody has been reading the ever excellent UK:Resistance blog. There's an appropriate comment on their site that's worth reproducing here:

Dr Kawashima: "So, I've managed to make passable voice recognition software work at a suitable speed for gaming and with small enough demands to work on a portable console. Voice regonition is one of the greatest computing challenges so to be honest I'm quite pleased with myse- "

Campbell: "Does it recognize French?"

Dr Kawashima: "No, it's only really designed to - "

Campbell: "The French are humans too, you racist. What about a leper, who's lips are falling off what would he do?"

Dr Kawashima: "I don't think it would work as it's- "

Campbell: "He's also Jewish"

Dr Kawashima: " -not designed to cope with that."

Campbell: "I DON'T BELIEVE WHAT I'M HEARING!"

What's funny is as I was getting pissed at the game for not understanding my accent. I swore in french in the mic and the game took it for blue or yellow(can't remember), it was pretty funny. :D

It's not just dialect though, there's different ways of saying 'Yellow' depending on which side of London you are on, North or South.

Discriminating was a dumb word to use, but I suppose an News article along the lines of 'Shock! Horror! Speech Recognition is still pretty dodgy, same as it has been for years!' wouldn't really catch the public interest.

Voice recognition with current technology discriminates against everyone. Unless the software is set to one person's voice, it will only operate about somewhere around 80 percent efficiency, and that's at best.

A common principle of linguistics is that everyone has an accent, of sorts. There is no "standard" language.

Discrimination? Wow. Grasping at straws. Not even people are accustomed to every accent in the world, and can't understand what everyone hears. The games have trouble when I speak in japanese at times b/c I tend to speak in a kumamoto accent >_>
Silly me, not silly discrimination. It'll be difficult for computer program to recognize all forms of a language especially when speech impediments may affect the person speaking and slang is not programmed into recognition.
So someone saying, "I dun it wron' man'! I'm 'a talk betta!" isn't necessarily going to be recognized since it wasn't programed to omit some sounds and still accept.

What's next? England saying that the game discriminates saying the "u" in Flavor, color and favorite? Flavour, colour, favourite.

as a scot, i can say 'srsly, wtf' at this. omg, it doesn't quite recognise your voice pattern?? oh noes, it was clearly targetted against you!
it are conspiracy!
light the flaming torches!



i think a better option would be to teach the DS a user's voice, rather like MS office's feature.

I don't know what kind of accent I have but I must be discriminated against too!

She does know that speaking in Brain Age (training, whatever) is not required but optional right?

@ JC:

"England" hasn't complained about anything - one particular tv show host doesn't represent an entire nation.

After all, you didn't find Europeans crying "America labels Mass Effect as porn" after that erroneous, slanderous Fox news report.

oh go to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer

search for watchdog. Iplayer is a free service so you can watch the episode of watchdog in question (in fact all bbc tv for last 7 days)

can you link to it GP?

i think if you watch the whole thing you'll see my point (not that it was fair or correct, IMO it was way over dramatic) but it wasnt really about somebodys race, or calling nintendo racists

Oh jeez... this is the stupidest thing ever. Seriously, stop complaining about how the game is "racist" because you're accent isn't picked up by even the most advanced voice recognition software.

*awaits Fox News to come in a blow the story way way WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of proportion*

JMack

There's no "R" in yellow. Sorry. I have no issues with dialect, in fact, Pittsburgh (where I'm from) is known for it's own quirky tang. But I draw the line at adding letters.

^I meant "not redesigned for different regions of the U.K"

I was laughing myself silly when this went to air yesterday. This woman, mispronouncing "Yellow" as "Yeller" and then complaining it doesn't understand her.

Most people don't understand Mancunians at the best of times, let alone a computer.

The instructions say try to pronounce words clearly, and shes there shouting "Yeller" "Yeller"... hilarious.

They obviously had time to fill on this weeks show and just thought "oh that ones easy to do..."

The PC brigade is out in force on another mission of stupidity...

"Discrimination" is not the word for the voice recognition in Brain Age. "Shoddy" or "broken" are much better words. The only decent true way of getting voice recognition to work for this would be is they had a trainer on it, i.e. before you begin it asked you to say what colour they saw with the correct word and they saved that sound sample for comparison rather than some programmer or devloper doing it at design time.

Anyhow, this is nothing to do with accent if she is shouting "yellar"; that is dialect.

You guys are such characters! Seriously, what's with the massive overreaction?

I happened to see the show and the segment was presented as a bit of light relief at the end. No one was "screaming" discrimination, the word "racism" was never once hinted at - all concerned were very calm and lighthearted about the whole thing. Personally, I most enjoyed the bit where they got an impersonator in to see what celebrities would have most luck with the software (the Queen and Des Lynam, as it turns out).

Now there's people here talking about allegations of racism and conspiracy? Guys, guys, come on. We're talking about a simple, factual, and not all that serious complaint. You're allowed to back down once in a while.


Incidentally though, does this means it's now ok to condemn things without bothering to find out anything about them? Because, uh, I thought we didn't like that, what with the Mass Effect thing and all.

There should be a new rule like rule /34/.

If it exists, people WILL bitch about it.

I'm still waiting to see these posts that claim he said it was racist in the first place.....

*as does the US

@Monkeythumbs

Read before commenting please.

@Kira

Enunciation isn't perfect for everyone though, as people who speak at a certain pitch or certain way after six years old will have trouble attempting making such sounds unless their voice is accustomed to it.

An example I can give would be some asian languages having trouble making the "Th" American sound as it isn't something they are likely to come across before the age of six.

I find it nigh impossible to have a program to have memory on each of these possibilities, especially for accents alone.

Arrr... I be a pirate, and thar' be discrimination against us pirates too! There be talk about the cabin about a lawsuit against them scurvy Nintendo landlubbers.

NovaBlack:

"Sorry, this programme is only available to play in the UK"

@ JC

Okay, here goes. You said in your post, and I quote:

"What’s next? England saying that the game discriminates..."

From that, I inferred that you thought "England" had already complained about something. This inference on my part may have been wrong. However, it's your notion of "England" saying anything that I object to in this instance, as if the country were some corporate entity able to speak with one voice. The equivalent would be "America says [this or that]", which would be equally as misplaced, given that it is only individuals or their collective representatives that hold forth on particular topics.

Either way, I'm sure no jingoism was intended on your part (and now I sound like a pompous ass to boot).

@GoliathWins

only available to play in the uk.. damn!

anyone know of a way to get round this??

Uhh, voice recognition is very complicated process. You cannot expect a DS to perfectly recongize voice commands for 100000 different accents, and hell thats English.

It's very simple. An accurate voice regognician software (like Dragon Naturally Speaking) needs quite a bit of training for it to take dictation. When it does, you have to enunciate. Guess what, as you remove the training, the word has to be said more percisely for the system to pick it up. The DS is looking for the most correct way of speaking "Yellow", from almost anyone. If it is too loose, then it can't tell the difference between "Yellow" and "Burroughs".

It isn't discrimination, you AREN'T SPEAKING CORRECTLY!
There IS a propper way to say "Blue", there is a correct way of saying "Yellow". It is in Websters.

There isn't a Southern way of saying it, and a Northern way of saying it, and a Scottish way of saying it. There are just different ways to mangle the language so that those around you can understand you.

This whole thing is a bunch of poppycock! That's like a French person complaining that it wasn't recognizing "Rouge" when he saw red. Of course it didn't, it isn't looking for the word Red, it is looking for a specific sound.

Maybe if it doesn't understand when you say "yella", you should instead say "y?l'?"

Half of the Dragon Naturally Speaking training (it was training the software, not a class or anything) I did (it was about 10 years ago) was teaching yourself how to speak so that the computer understood you. When I was done, I could read from a book outloud and it would transcribe everything perfectly (it's supposed to have gotten better since then). Since then, I haven't had any problems with any voice recognician, either on phone systems, computers, or people with accents.

To make things more fun, I learned to speak while travelling. My accent is so mixed up that no one can place it, but I can speak with whatever accent is around me at the time if I need to. When I'm speaking to a computer, my voice becomes monotone, clipped and precise.

If you can't get the system to understand you, enunciate as if you were giving Shakespere.

Oh well, I also tried to find the webcomic where the guy was yelling Blue at the DS. There are a couple of them. The latest was a parody of Pulp Fiction that ended with them shooting the DS. This isn't a racial or cultural thing, it just needs you to be very percise when speaking or it won't understand you.

Seriously, it would be so cool to talk to these people who are claiming discimination face to face... just so I can say "Wait, what? ... What? ... Could you speak a little more clearly, I can't understand you."

Oh dear. This is what you *really* get when you get a bunch of people succumbing to lifestyle advertising and jumping on the gamer bandwagon.
1]Christmas gift destined to get fired in a cupboard
2]Software attatch rate 1.0

If only there was a section in that piece that went 'I said to my botfriend that it didn't work - he said I shouldn't be playing that shovelware shite anyway, and to go buy Zelda'

I think this is simply a small failing on the part of the developer for Brain Age/Training.

Not to say that the people who think they're being discriminated against are correct: just that they could have added a "speech training" segment to the software, similar to current tech speech-to-text software. All they have to do is present all the different speaking parts of the program to the user at the beginning, have the user speak the word and let the program figure out how to recognize it.

I can understand the frustration: I tried playing Brain Age once and it kept getting my scores wrong because it could not understand me when I played the Rock-Paper-Scissors game. I don't think I have an accent at all, but I'm sure a little training on the part of the program would help a lot.

*sigh* it REALLY wasnt much of a segment claiming discrimination...

it was kinda a joke when they said the word discrimination in the context of a light hearted 5 minute segment. It wasnt seriously getting all PC. honestly.

Point at the show for all the other errors they made during the segment, not the discrimination thing that didnt happen. please. this IS just as bad as cooper lawrence, but now its gamers prejudging things.


HERE IS THE YOUTUBE LINK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SlpbB5OxeY

EVERYONE CAN WATCH IT!

I had the same problem with saying blue during the shoop test. My Jersey accent makes me pronounce the color in one "blue" instead of two "bl-ue" which is what the game picks up. It's annoying, but not the end of the world.

I can't watch flash movies at work, so I can't tell if they are being serious or not, but speach recognition is a bit of a sticking point for me. People don't understand just how difficult it is for the computer, and how wonderful that the computer can do it at all. You need to at least meet it halfway. You can't talk to it with the most aweful pronounciation and expect it to understand.

Here is another point:
-------------
"All they have to do is present all the different speaking parts of the program to the user at the beginning, have the user speak the word and let the program figure out how to recognize it."
-------------

We are talking about a DS here, not a PC. A voice profile is more then just how you pronounced the word once. It has to be able to take into account different speeds of speaking, differnt levels of stress, did you say "blue" or did you ASK "blue?" The TV shows where someone says "Computer, give me all possible points of entry" and the computer knows what he is talking about... that's fiction. Even the stripped down stuff, like Voice Commander for voice recognition in a video game, takes quite a bit of training and processing. This is a small, accessible game system, not a laptop.

Basically, they can program in an approximation, an envelope, that the majority of pronounciations should fall into, and if you can't speak it, then you fail. Trying to add in the capability to train it is way beyond the scope of the game, and would make the game less accessible to people who are afraid of technology, which seems to be this games target audience.

Also, my step-father could never talk properly. He had hearing damage and dentures and so he would always slur and mumble. This would be less of a problem if he didn't haul off and hit me if I didn't do what he said quickly enough.

All in all, this series has been a great seller, and if a few more people in the world realize that no one can understand them, then I think it's done humanity a favor.

Considering that I have a neutral accent I haven't had too much trouble with voice software (except for Microsoft phone support, but like their software it all universally sucks), however a good friend of mine from the Highlands finds it increasingly difficult to use voice software without going out of her way to correctly enunciate words. Is it racism, not really, it's just that there are so many types of accents and mispronunciations that a simple voice program cannot identify them all accurately.

Strangely enough, this was hinted back in the early 80's in 2010: The Year We Make Contact, when D. Chandra said that the different accents (American & Russain) would only confuse HAL 9000. Go figure.

text from my friend playing the game:

"Blue...
blue...
BAH-LOOO!
&*(&(^, i said BLUE!"

no accent.

Many of these posts offer pretty great ways of explaining the conflict the game has with an accent. I propose we Email the BBC with a bunch of these posts crudly riveted to the side of a letter. Maybe unlike fox they'll withdraw their statement.

Is it just me, or did anyone else think of the possibility that you have to say "broo" to get it to work?

http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20070625

First things first.

This Nick guy is a complete wanker, Watchdog is a terrible show and he seems to be the only Scot bothered with it. Another idiot jumping on the 'games are evil in all ways' bandwagon. Im Scottish and if saying 'Blue' presented a problem in the game then i'd say it differently.

I have a hard time understanding Scottish accents, too.

"Race" has nothing do with this. "Accent" and "region" do. Everybody, please learn to differentiate. People's ethnic category, such as their race, is not the only factor that is discriminated against.

My australian accent does not at all get bad results

the way i see this its kinda like if you tell a deaf person they are discriminating when they cant hear what you say..

apart from they arent are they.. they just dont understand. completely different. I see discrimination as something active (not passive) and negative toward a certain race, age, colour , etc which this certainly isnt.

haha! Imagine Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons playing this game! :D

Christer

[...] Brain Training Dun wanna har et [...]

@TheGreg

The purpose of the game is to make you smarter, NOT to make you lose your accent. If you want to lose your accent there are things out there that will help.