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Subject: 
Re: Access a LEGO set DB with your phone!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.off-topic.geek
Date: 
Mon, 11 Mar 2002 14:38:25 GMT
Viewed: 
540 times
  
In lugnet.general, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
Hi all,

I've been playing with VXML and wanted some pet projects to help me learn.  So
I've been looking at my hobbies for applications.

I am continually amazed at how many of you can remember so many LEGO set
numbers/names/prices and other stats.  I'm terrible at that and there must be
others of you out there too.  Sometimes I'm in a store and find LEGO on sale
but don't know the original price and getting that info from the store is often
trying.

So, I've created an application that will allow you to phone in and speak (or
use your keypad) set numbers and hear back a brief message with the set name
and original price.  I have most sets from the past four years entered at this
point since those are the most likely to appear on sale shelves.

I'd be keen to hear:
if it works (or not) for you
problems that you had using it
suggestions for improvement
etc.

I'm preliminarily calling it L-Shop: the LEGO shopping utility, but if someone
else has used that name, I'd find a new one right away (searching LUGNET turns
up no references to L-Shop, LShop, L Shop, etc.).

You can access L-Shop in North America by dialing 1-800-555-TELL (8355) and
keying in 1-57467 or saying "extensions" and then "57467" once the voice
handler has you.

It'll ask for set numbers and return the US name of the set and the MSRP if the
number is in my DB.  If it didn't understand part of the number you spoke or if
that set isn't in the DB, it will tell you that set isn't in the DB.

The speech synthesizer is rough right now, I'm still learning how to tweak
inflection and the like.  I might end up just recording the initial greeting
and then trying to improve the synth from the DB.  If you are in a noisy
environment, you might get best results by inputting with your keypad but I've
found the voice-recognition to be pretty good.  It _seems_ so far to be a
little better at recognizing male voices than female, but I'll know more after
hearing back from some of you.

If anyone out there is doing VXML and has suggestions, that'd be great!

Chris

PS - I wasn't sure where this should go so I set FUT .general.  If you know
better, feel encouraged to direct the thread.

Hi!

I've been a TELLME user for ages, since they were in early beta actually.
It's a neat idea (although not sure it's a moneymaking one), and I use it a
lot to find out weather in destination cities or just to kill a little time
in the airport.

Can you review how to get to your service (I wasn't aware you could even add
your own services!)in a little more depth... when I dial in the code or say
"extensions" I just get the VRU telling me it doesn't recognise what I said
as a keyword Is this maybe geography specific?

Xposted to off-topic.geek but not sure where this belongs either!



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Access a LEGO set DB with your phone!
 
(...) I'm a long time user too! I used to use the phone book more than anything and it sucks that they removed it. Now I use the traffic keyword more than anything, but I drive more than I fly so that might account for our different focus. (...) (...) (22 years ago, 11-Mar-02, to lugnet.general, lugnet.off-topic.geek)

Message is in Reply To:
  Access a LEGO set DB with your phone!
 
Hi all, I've been playing with VXML and wanted some pet projects to help me learn. So I've been looking at my hobbies for applications. I am continually amazed at how many of you can remember so many LEGO set numbers/names/prices and other stats. (...) (22 years ago, 11-Mar-02, to lugnet.announce, lugnet.general, lugnet.org.us.gardenslug) !! 

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