John,

The phone number idea is good as long as one can make a local call. It is
sort of similar to product activation; having said that what is to prevent
a very clever program from making that call and getting the requisite data?
I was thinking of a smart voice phone system.

Can you tell I have been reading too much science fiction? <grin

Pranav
At 08:58 PM 7/24/2003 -0700, you wrote:
 >I have also tried to use the spoken letters from Microsoft for another
 >purpose - signing up for a "passport".  I gave up after the first
 >trial.  The reason  that this problem arises is to keep spammers from
 >jamming everybody's account with junk mail, so we all have to sympathize
 >with the problem that is being solved here.  The background noise is
 >deliberate, because it would defeat the purpose if the spoken message was
 >so clear that speech recognition could pick it up and translate it correctly.
 >
 >I was in a Microsoft-hosted meeting with a lot of access technologists
 >recently, and Microsoft was looking to us for a better solution.  This
 >group of "experts" couldn't come up with any idea better than having a
 >phone number to call.  There must be some clever way that blind people can
 >be given enough information to sign up, but that's easier to say than to
 >do.  If anybody on the list does have a really good solution, I'll forward
 >it to Microsoft.  And I'll all but guarantee that they'll adopt it if it
 >really does solve the problem for blind people without permitting a
 >computer program to access it automatically and flood Hotmail with zillions
 >of spam-generating accounts.  Given a choice, I'll take the minor bother of
 >calling a phone number in preference to multiplying the spam that floods my
 >e-mail.
 >
 >John
 >
 >
 >At 10:20 PM 7/24/2003 -0400, you wrote:
 >>Hello
 >>
 >>While attempting to set up a Hotmail account, I got to a point where you
 >>need to type in characters that appear in a picture. What is nice is that
 >>they have an option for you to click on a link if you can't see the
 >>picture. The idea is that you click on a wav file which contains the
 >>spoken characters that you need to type in. In theory that is great, but
 >>in practice, listening to the file is an exercise in frustration, as there
 >>is so much background noise, that you can't distinguish, for example a "b"
 >>from a "p."  Moreover, the speed at which the woman read-out the
 >>characters made it necessary to replay the file more than once. I tried
 >>at least ten times with no luck. Every
 >>time I typed in what I thought I heard as the character string, it was
 >>wrong.
 >>Has anyone else experienced this new kink in Hotmail?
 >>
 >>While MicroSoft should be applauded for taking a different approach than
 >>Yahoo (where you need to call in to get the characters that are embedded
 >>in a picture), was
 >>this fully tested for its practicality?
 >>
 >>Jennison
 >>
 >>-----------------------
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 >
 >John Gardner
 >Professor and Director, Science Access Project
 >Department of Physics
 >Oregon State University
 >Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
 >tel: (541) 737 3278
 >FAX: (541) 737 1683
 >e-mail: [log in to unmask]
 >URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu
 >
 >-----------------------
 >Check out the EASI web:
 >http://www.rit.edu/~easi
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 >

-----------------------
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