Walkie-Talkie - The Ultimate Phone Experience?

The trouble with smart phones is that its hard to input text. I seem to be especially bad at this.
First on Android, and now iOS, they have built-in a microphone button on the on-screen keyboard to enable voice-to-text (dictation). I think this is the future I want to live in, but the thing is, I'm not very good at this dictating either.

I wonder if future generations will become very good at dictating or if its so socially unacceptable that our race is destined to be typing on these screens forever.

In any event, my issue with this voice-to-text button on the keyboard is that its buried on the keyboard. What I really want is something I can do without looking at the screen at all.  Like "touch-typing" on a keyboard.

For instance, in the car, I can't afford to look down at my phone. And don't even get me started on our Ford Escape with Microsoft Sync...

Anyway, it turns out that holding the iPhone button to get to Apple's Siri gets me 'close' to what I want, but I think there's lots of room for improvement. I don't want to hold the button for a second before I can start talking. And I don't want Siri to listen for a while until she thinks I'm done...only to tell me that my request didn't make sense to her.

On my friend's new Android, the phone is "always listening".  This is kinda cool (and kind of creepy), but you need to wake it up by saying something like "OK Google" which makes you feel a bit ridiculous in public (and maybe even in private).

On my ideal phone, I would instead have a physical button on the side that is devoted to voice input.  This button would work like a walkie-talkie (or, perhaps less antiquated, something like that Sprint/Nextel "push to talk" feature).  Only, instead of talking to a friend or a group of co-workers, I would push the button to talk to my digital assistant on the phone (Siri or Google Now). When I push the button, the phone listens.  When I release the button, the phone stops listening. Its that simple. Why has no one done this?!

Aside from the physical button, I think we need all-around better conversational AI (or even just better screen-reader technology).  Its really sad to me that GOOG-411 was actually better for in-car use that my JellyBean Android phone.

First one to make a phone like this will get my $.
*kshhhhh* Over *kshhhhh*

The real hype cycle

According to Gartner, all technology goes through a hype cycle in the marketplace as it matures.  It may be one of their most popular analysis pages (that or their 'magic quadrant' work).

But this isn't quite right.  Everyone that's been in IT long enough knows that almost every technology (no matter how innovative) has its roots in some other idea/technology years before. It may have a new name. A new use case. A new distribution channel. But the technology just isn't that new.

So, I conjecture that the 'true' hype cycle doesn't end in the "Plateau of Productivity" but instead it is truly a cycle...with each iteration feeding into a NEW technology trigger (anywhere from 5-20 years down the line):

The Federal Internet Identity Service

I have been doing some learning about Trust and Identity on the internet recently, particularly the new web-style standards like OpenID, Information Cards, etc. This got me thinking (dangerous, I know)...

What if the US Government acted as trusted 3rd party? They could assign a public/private key pair to every citizen (almost like a social security number) in order to provide verification services.
Maybe they could even offer something like an OpenId server as well.

If every citizen had a secret private key, that would enable you to digitally sign anything and anyone could verify it with a high degree of trust. In fact, verifying someone's identity would be as simple as checking their signature with the government service.


Then again, pretty sure no one trusts the government except me...