Doing some cleaning out, I found a copy of Electronics Australia magazine from January 1981. In it I found a "News Highlight" headlined;

Voice-activated typewriters by 1983, says US report


"Faster-than-expected progress in the development of speech recognition technology will result in the commercial availability of voice-activated typewriters by 1983 and they will be in "widespread" use by the end of the decade, according to a new 170-page report from International Resource Development Inc, a US market research firm.

A competitive battle is expected to develop between IBM, Xerox and Mat5u5hita for dominance of this market in the mid-1980s, and the report predicts that "more than one million typists and secretaries will be redeployed - or unemployed - as a result of the new machines".

Also included in the report are predictions of rapidly increasing use of speech recognition and voice synthesis in home appliances and consumer products, including "imminent" introduction of voice-recognition on TV channel tuners and automobile ignition locks."



We're still waiting...